


skin of the wolf

by pikwanchu



Series: skin of the wolf [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: A young adult who just wanted to do his job, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, An unwelcoming pack, Cult Behavior, Drinking, Dubious Consent, Journalist!doyoung, M/M, Nightmares, Obsessive Behavior, Panic Attacks, Psychological Manipulation, Recreational Drug Use, Semi graphic depictions of death, a wolf finding his place by finding his mate, and so much tension it’s unbareable at times, death by fire but pre story, ghost writer!doyoung, i will add more as they appear - Freeform, psychological thriller i guess??, rather than werewolves they are lycans, sorry idk how to tag stuff :(, three young adults who knew too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 62,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikwanchu/pseuds/pikwanchu
Summary: “You know, we don’t really like strangers around here.”Doyoung was never good at direct confrontation. “Oh…”, he swallowed, “I’m just going to investigate for a bit. It’s for an article-“. The driver’s sarcastic laugh interrupted him, and Doyoung’s eyes fell back into the map in his hands, trying to follow the route that the car was making with his eyes, as if that would help him get familiar with the place easier.These were going to be three long months for Doyoung.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: skin of the wolf [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045170
Comments: 339
Kudos: 488





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! this fic was inspired by a prompt that @guavatoast on twitter (breadfruit on AO3) posted last year! I hope you enjoy.
> 
> few warnings:  
> -this is going to be kind of dark. please pay attention to the tags because i'll keep adding things as i post but ill also leave a note on the beginning of chapters as i add the tags  
> \- i dont know hwat the posting schedule is going to be, it's my first time writing an intentionally multi chaptered fic!  
> \- enjoy !

The first thing Doyoung noticed, as he stepped down the bus, was the dust. There was soil underneath his feet, earth, and it was so dry that even stepping on it made dust fly everywhere. He directed a quiet _thank you_ the bus driver for taking his bags off of the compartment, and he took them from the old man as soon as he could.

Three bags that had seemed way too little before, felt like entirely too much right now, having one hanging from his shoulder on one side, and the other two from his hand on the other, half sweeping the ground. He couldn’t care less about the dust they were picking, he was more distracted by the dry cold that was trying to sweep through his jacket’s neck, threatening to send a chill down his spine. He had packed for the time being, for the cold weather, for the little he had researched from the town beforehand. He was going to have time to investigate to his heart’s content now, anyway.

Doyoung sighed, starting to walk in the station, as he saw the big sign. _Welcome to Neukddomyeon._

He thought three months were going to be more than enough.

“You know, we don’t really like strangers around here.”

Doyoung was never good at direct confrontation.

“Oh…”, he swallowed, “I’m just going to investigate for a bit. It’s for an article-“

The driver’s sarcastic laugh interrupted him, and Doyoung’s eyes fell back into the map in his hands, trying to follow the route that the car was making with his eyes, as if that would help him get familiar with the place easier. The town was right under a big mountain, surrounded by the woods that grew down from it. If it had been years before, he mused to himself, he’d have had his nose mashed against the window, looking at the ancient giant as much as his eyes can take it. But he figured he’d do that some other time, when he felt less vaguely threatened by the stranger driving him to what was going to be his home for the next few weeks.

He felt his body relax when the car finally entered urban area, even letting out a relieved breath when he sees a familiar road appear on the windshield. The place looked simultaneously more beautiful and more rundown than the pictures that he had seen online. The grass, the wood of the trees, the little elf decoration standing on the road to the house, it all seemed more vivid, more contrasting against the gloomier woods that surrounded the house, but the wood of the walls, the windows, even the door, it all looked like it had been standing there for much longer Doyoung had lived.

He paid the driver (he even tipped, trying to be the bigger man), and he felt the car behind him leaving as he stood there, in front of it. Somehow, the size of the house made him feel way too small, the second floor towering over him, contrasting greatly with the cloudy sky. He took in one breath of courage, pressed the keys between his fingers, and finally walked inside.

It was, well, normal. And with normal, he means old, just as he expected. The place looked, smelled exactly like he had imagined, yellowish walls, wooden furniture, a fireplace, all enclosed in a huge living-room. The kitchen, to his right, was only divided by a stool that stood between them, like a bar table, right next to the stairs that took him upstairs. He felt that distinct cold that big rooms have, of iciness concentrating between four walls that made his toes suffer.

He let the bags fall, finally stretching up, and letting a loud moan, as his bones cracked all over his back. He hoped he was able to relax.

 _First things first_ , he thought to himself, as he walked upstairs, heading towards the left. As his boss (who had been the one arranging his entire stay) had told him, there were three doors. Bathroom, office, room, if he remembered well enough. They were all good for use, as far as he could recall, since the old lady that had rented it to him hadn’t been living there for a long time, nothing of importance had been left.

He decided he’d take a look at the office first.

The idea of an office had had him weirdly excited ever since he had been told about it. There was something interesting about having an entire room for his work, as opposite to his cramped two room apartment in the middle of the city, back in Seoul.

But as soon as he opened the door, he paled.

A man. A tall, big man, holding a hammer.

He felt the bag slipping from his hand, to the floor, and as the noise it made made the man turn to him, all of his flight instincts turned on like red alarms inside his mind.

“Oh, hey!”

He straightened up, and all Doyoung could focus on was his size. His broad shoulders seemed to cover the entire window behind him, the loose shirt he’s wearing made him look built. Doyoung was scared. Had he gone in in the wrong house? But he had opened the door with the keys...

“Uh-.”, Doyoung could only say, “I’m- Is this, um, Gyuri-do, 24-“

The man barked a genuine laugh, it lighted up his expression, not before taking his hand to his mouth, “Ah, yeah- Sorry I was- I thought you were going to arrive later. My name is Youngho, I’m Suh Miri’s grandson.”, he left the tacks he had had between his lips on the table next to him, and Doyoung registers somewhere in his mind that that was what he had taken away from his mouth. “But call me Johnny.”

Doyoung lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The man- Johnny, Johnny, leaves the hammer on the desk and steps closer to him, extending out his hand. Doyoung’s hand instantly shoots out, polite, and grabs his in a handshake. Johnny’s grip is strong.

“My grandma asked me to come check the house, make sure to fix whatever was needed, but I only had time today.” he mentioned, as he shook his hand, looking at him. Doyoung found that he couldn’t really look at him in the eyes, feeling suddenly apprehensive, “I’m sorry about that...”

“Doyoung.”, he provided, quickly.

“Right, Doyoung.”, he smiled again, friendly, big. He has thick lips, he noticed, and a nice smile, so Doyoung decided that whatever feeling of alert it was giving him should be ignored. Maybe the driver’s words were getting to him. “I was just finishing fixing this panel right here.”, he walked up to it, knocking on the wood. Now that Doyoung was getting out of his shock, he noticed the difference of the color in that one plank from the rest of the ones that form the wall. It was brighter, and it stood out, but it fit perfectly. “Just trying to figure out how many more nails it needs to stay in there, but I think I’m pretty much done? I won’t bother you for long.”

Doyoung simply nodded, bowed, and left to the room.

Almost half an hour later, though, he found himself on the kitchen table with a mug on his hand, and Johnny sitting in front of him, after offering a cup of coffee in gratitude for helping out as soon as he found some instant packages he had left loose on his handbag. It hadn’t taken much to convince him to accept it.

“Thank you for- um. You know, doing the… stuff that needed to be done.”, Doyoung started. In reality he was desperate to get rid of the awkward environment he accidentally created before, mostly because he wanted to start gaining some contacts in Neukddomyeon as soon as he could. It was getting complicated, somehow, with the way the other man kept looking at him, and he wants to smash his head against something. He’s never usually this awkward.

It was probably just the shock and the trip’s fatigue taking its toll on him, he decided, his awkwardness would probably fade after he sleeps in a bed.

“No problem” Johnny smiled, “Just let me know if you need something else, my number is on the fridge.”

Doyoung nodded, “I’ll just be investigating the area for a few days for now, before starting my work.”, he said, attempting a casual tone, as he took a sip of the coffee. It was too bitter, “Maybe later I’ll need a few tips, though.”

This made Johnny raise an eyebrow with a hint of mirth in his eyes. “Work? I knew you weren’t coming here for a nice vacation.”

Doyoung smiled, faking humility, happy that he got the feet he needed nevertheless, “I’m a journalist, I write for a historical magazine.”

Doyoung thought he saw a slight frown in the other’s face for a split second. “Oh?”

“Yeah,”, Doyoung continued, “We are going in depth over cultures brought into Korea. Do you happen to know anything about the wolves?”

“Wolves?” Johnny laughed, replying fast.

“You know, the culture... uh, religion... around wolves?”

Johnny’s lips contorted into a weird smile, more to himself than to Doyoung, and sipped on his mug, “I probably heard something”. Doyoung was about to ask something else, when the man stood up, stretching his arms. It was then that he noticed that he’s wearing a short sleeved shirt, and he couldn’t help to wonder how he was not freezing. “It’s getting kinda late, huh? I should go.”

Doyoung felt caught off guard again, the man leaving just as he was starting to get the feeling he had begun pulling the string. “Okay”, he just said instead, picking up the mug in front of him. Johnny started walking to the door without waiting for him to walk him.

“By the way, you’ll want to keep this one and the backyard one under locks during the night.”, he mentioned, casually, as he grabbed some keys on the table next to the door. Doyoung doesn’t know if he should ask why, but he ends up not having to, because the next thing Johnny said was, “Wouldn’t want a… someone like you, getting hurt by a curious animal walking inside at night.”

Doyoung blinked twice, not knowing if he should take offense on the comment. “Uh, okay.”, he decided to decide later.

“Stay safe,” Johnny’s head ends up being the only thing visible, and the last thing he says before he was completely gone was, “See you around.”

Doyoung locked the door, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding for the second time that day. He was not really sure why.

He wasn’t sure about many things at the moment. But he was determined to find them out.

The rest of the evening, as the sky began turning darker and darker was spent exploring the house. It was, indeed, as big inside as it looked on the outside. Fully furnitured, as he had rented it, it had this alien yet cozy feeling elder’s houses had. A lot of the shelves, especially the ones protected behind glass doors, were full up with decorations, surrounded with a slight layer of dust. China plates, borderline creepy sculpted animals, and… Doyoung’s eyes zeroed for a minute or two in a carved wooden plate that had a wolf in the middle, ornamented by all kinds of delicately carved details. He had made a mental note on it, and kept nosing around.

There was a TV, a sofa, and even a carpet on the living room. The second floor had four rooms in total, counting the bathroom and the office. The other room, the one Doyoung wasn’t supposed to be sleeping in, seemed to have been the Johnny’s grandma’s, still having all the decorations and pictures hanging that seemed fit of a woman in her seventies.

Back in the living-room, the fireplace had been surprisingly easy to turn on, doing exactly how Johnny had explained to him hours before. Two pieces of tinder from the pile next to the fireplace, two pieces of newspaper soaked in alcohol, one match, and the entire room was soon warm and cozy enough for Doyoung to just be in a long sleeved shirt.

What he did have a problem with was with the water while intending to take a shower. He ended up showering with cold water, very fast and barely actually standing under the stream. Either way, once he got out, he found his softest pajama and took his time like never before with getting changed, and toweling his hair until it’s completely dry. Admittedly, smelling nice did wonders to his mood, although his skin still kept the fresh temperature cold showers always left.

He decided to call his boss, simply to let him know he had arrived, but when he checked the time it turns out that it already was nine p.m., which was when his stomach remembers that it’s empty. He’s glad that he had decided to bring the food from his own fridge from home (instead of trashing it away, as his best friend had suggested), because at least now he was able to get some ramen and eggs inside his stomach without having to go explore the town in the middle of the dark by foot. Despite himself, Johnny’s warning had stayed in the back of his mind.

His day ended after he accommodated one of the bags, the one where he had the essentials, inside the closet. After not much thought, he threw the other two in there too, deciding to finish the job the following morning. A soon as his head hit the pillow, he felt the enveloping hug of sleep curling around his thoughts.

And that night, he dreamt of wolves.


	2. Chapter 2

He needed to set up a routine.

That’s what Doyoung was thinking, as he took some rice from the rice-maker, and poured himself a small dish of it. He had almost nothing to have breakfast with, since the only edible things he had brought with himself over from Seoul were the things he was sure wouldn’t get him sick if they went over seven hours without refrigeration… Coffee, tea, some canned food and perhaps a bag or two of ramyun.

The kitchen had dark brown cabinets, all of them full of plates and containers and dishes in a mess that made Doyoung feel like just breathing around them would make them fall down. Albeit, they were plastic, so the mess wouldn’t be terrible. Doyoung still decided he’d take some time in the next few days to put some order to them… and maybe to the rest of the house. 

He felt slightly lightheaded as he went through all the tasks he’d set himself to do, and there was a weird guilt to the fact that he knows he’s doing it on purpose. Loading himself up with tasks to do had always helped him not to think. And he was trying not to think really hard right now. 

The nightmares that had hounded him the night before were still uncomfortably fresh in his mind. He couldn’t remember a storyline, but more like flashes of sharp teeth, dripping in saliva, and the feel of dirt between his toes, as he tried to run away. There was a slip, too, and the floor hitting his head so hard that getting up was impossible, and a hand reaching down to him, a hand that turned into clawed fingers, that went for his throat and ripped it open as it cut his air supply. 

He could remember the sound of his own frenzied heartbeat and the eager whines of the wolves surrounding him, as well as the blood trails slithering down his neck. Needless to say, waking up was more than relieving, and finding that the blood trails were actually sweat trails, even more so. 

Understandably, domestic tasks were far more appealing right now. He hadn’t gotten to investigate the entire house yet, either, but every door he’d opened so far had objects piled up inside; either brooms or plates, or ropes or tools. He had even found some cabinets with some old maps, documents, even blank notebooks that he did a mental note of, they might come in handy later. He also made sure to make a mental note of the documents, another might-be-helpful information for later. He’d need every single bit of non-human help he could find.

The first thing he’d do, he decided as he took a bite of his all white rice, is going to the market.

The only problem was that he doesn’t know where there’s one. The house where he was staying, while not completely away from the town, was on the outskirts, or at least so he thought. This meant lots of houses with huge backyards, front yards and structures, but no shops in sight.

He kind of wished he had learnt to drive a car when he had been pressured to. Living in the main city, public transportation had always been cheaper and more convenient, he had never seen any use in learning that skill. Now he felt regret, as he heard a motor rounding the corner, making its slow way in front of his lawn. But when he looked up, he recognized the driver.

“Johnny!”, he called, running to the walk path, lifting the hand he wasn’t holding his wallet with. “Hey!”

The pickup, a grey Isuzu that was on the verge of being called rundown, slowed down in front of him just as he stopped. 

“Ninety eight?”, Doyoung asked, putting on the best smile he could handle. Now that he was well rested and with a clear head, he felt much more confident interacting with Johnny, who was literally the only person in that place he knew yet, and the only one who could possibly help him. Getting closer to Johnny was a need. 

“Older.”, Johnny replied with the ghost of a smirk on his lips. Even inside the big truck, he looked massive, like the metal monster stretched to accommodate him. His dark eyes were again on him, so heavy that Doyoung’s skin crawled again.

“Ninety- uh… Ninety?”

“You know nothing about cars, do you?”, Doyoung felt heat rising up to his cheeks, the uncomfortable feeling Johnny brought in him getting forgotten by intense embarrassment, “Want a lift?”

Doyoung brightened slightly behind the red on his face. “Um, to a market, maybe?”

He saw Johnny stretch over his seat and unlock the door. 

“Off to the market we go.”

Much despite himself, Doyoung was completely disoriented of where exactly he was once they arrive to the market. In this place of the town, the streets were made of earth and the walking paths were cement platforms above the ground level that you had to climb a couple stairs to get on. 

He had tried to make a point of paying attention to the way to familiarize himself with the town, but he had ended up spending more than half of the trip too busy reprimanding himself for his feelings towards Johnny. There was no reason for him to feel that way, neither restless nor embarrassed, since the other man had been nothing but friendly from moment one, and doyoung just didn't understand why he felt like that. 

There was no reason, but especially, there was no time for him to feel that way. Most likely, he was going to need more of his help, so it was better for him to get over this… creeped-out sensation fast. He tried rationalizing it by considering the size difference between them; Johnny did look more than enough intimidating. He wasn’t used to big guys being friendly towards a stick like him. Most of the ones he knew, at least, who were bodyguards in places he had tried to investigate at in Gangnam, who would drag him out whenever they saw him sneaking around seedy dark clubs looking for this politician or that idol for an exclusive interview. 

_ It’s probably his eyes as well,  _ he suddenly thought,  _ his stare is too strong.  _

_ Especially when it’s on me. _

Doyoung shuddered, eyes lost, as the streets moved in front of him.

When Johnny’s truck stopped and Doyoung turned to him to thank him, he wasn’t there anymore. He found him him when he heard the loud sound of the door snapping closed, and he scrambled to do the same with a mental shrug. Johnny was already on the door, but as soon as he caught up to him, Johnny patted his shoulder.

“I’ll be over there,”, he pointed at a counter on the side, where an old woman was eyeing him with something akin to suspicion. She had her white hair tied in a high bun, and a red apron, like the only other employee in sight, a cashier. “Take your time.”

He hurried into the aisles, taking a basket on his way. 

He began filling it with the basics; ingredients, some cans of coffee and milk, some dairy products, fruit. Chicken. He decided to grab some cleaning products while he was at it. He started wandering around trying to find his favorite brand –the only that has this particular smell he likes– but he soon failed. Turning around, he noticed a boy in a red apron walking in hurriedly with a wooden box of tangerines in his hands, and follows him.

Waiting until the boy left it on the ground, he called him. “Excuse me...!”

The guy turned to him with a startle. He was young, Doyoung could tell that much, even though his face could refute that. But there was something innocent in his eyes, something anxious and obedient that told that he’s just as young as he was nice.

“Y-yes?”, the younger seemed surprised to see him, but his eyes didn’t stay on him for long, falling back onto the task in his hands. Did they really get so little foreigners in that town? Doyoung quickly asked him about his cleaner, and couldn’t help to notice how fidgety the boy was. There was something in the way he avoided looking at him as he spoke, his eyes fixed on piling up the fruit, as if a second of distraction would allow the mountain to crumble down. 

“Jeno!”, suddenly, they got interrupted. It was the old woman from before, the one at the entrance. Jeno, the boy, jumped on his skin the second he heard his name. Doyoung thought it was weird, he’d think that a boy daring enough to dye his entire hair platinum blonde would have more balls than that. “Come!”

Jeno let out a loud and clear “Coming!” and instantly dropped his task, muttering a string of excuses at Doyoung and running away. Still, as abruptly as it ended, this was the most pleasant interaction he’s had in Neukddomyeon so far.

A few minutes after, once he finished picking all the things he needed, Doyoung found himself in front of the cash register, Jeno in front of him, proceeding to check out all of his items. This time, even when Doyoung tried to make small talk, there was barely a response on the other side, which quickly discouraged him from keep trying. As he left him to his task, Doyoung began looking around, trying to find Johnny. It didn’t take him long.

He was still with the old woman deep in what looked like a discussion. The woman’s deep set, wrinkle hidden eyes shot between Johnny and him as she talks, fast and low. There was a deep frown obscuring them. Johnny was wearing a frown of his own, though less deep, as he seemed to discuss back, one of his hands gesticulating along with his words (the other was holding the weight of his chest, since he was laying against the wooden table), as if he was coaxing the woman.    
  
Doyoung opted to ignore that, and finished paying for his things, suddenly impatient to go back home.    
  
“Doyoung!”, Johnny called him as soon a he saw his bags in hand. Doyoung instantly trotted towards him, “This is Old Joo. She’s the owner of the store.”. The older was wearing an easy smile, as if the discussion Doyoung had peeped on had been just part of his imagination. 

Doyoung formed an easy smile of his own, as he bowed low. When he went back up, the woman’s face was still in that deep frown of before. He hadn’t imagined it.

“Hello,”, he started cordially, “My name is-“

“I know it.”, the woman cut him.

Doyoung blinked twice, shocked at the sudden hostility. It took him a few seconds to recover, “Ah, of course… Johnny here must have told-“

The woman looked away from him, straight to Johnny. “Is he done buying? Go.”

Doyoung felt himself letting his eyes fall to his feet, but looked up again fast enough to see Johnny swallowing hard. He thought he saw some sort of emotion in the back of his eyes, but instead, he just replied, “Of course. We’ll go now, Joo.”, in the same voice as before. 

Once they are back in the truck, Johnny mentioned, “Ignore her.”, as he ignited the engine, “Joo is just not used to strangers.”, and he smiled at him, “You know how old people stick to habit.”

Doyoung attempted a smile and nodded, hugging himself as he willed his mind to focus on the road and nothing else.    
  
….   
  


Once his groceries are all set in place, his clothes all ordered meticulously inside the closet, floors all broomed and a couple of windows opened in an attempt to make the house smell less like inhabitable, it was around three in the afternoon and Doyoung found himself decided to stop kidding around and getting to work.

The daylight entered nicely through the first floor’s window, illuminating the kitchen, and that was what he told himself to no admit that the office room still intimidated him slightly, when he favored the kitchen table instead of it. He spread his map, the few documents he could find on-line on the town printed (nothing more than the basic information and a couple of newspaper articles) before coming and his black leather notebook, decided to form a plan of action.

After some thought, he decided that the hardest part of this investigation was knowing where to start. 

It’s not like it was Doyoung’s first time going out to investigate, but it was the first time he had to go out of town for it, and for so long. Usually, in Seoul it was easier for him to find information. He knew people in the police, he knew people in entertainment companies, he was okay at networking in a professional level. And if none of that worked, he was excellent at worming himself into wherever he needed. One way or the other, it had never been hard to find the information necessary to write any length of article he wanted. That was when he was a journalist.

About a year ago, he had decided to pursue his dream of being a writer, an actual writer. And due to his slightly impressive curriculum, he had been easily picked up by a well-known editorial. Many famous names were under Gyonhae Books. Doyoung wished to be one of them, one day.

But right now the dream seemed more far-fetched than he expected, seeing how they had only contracted him to be a ghost writer (and, therefore, ghost investigator). According to them, that’s how most had started in their company. 

“You do this now, and get used to write books. And then, when we trust you, we will let you publish something of your own.”, was what the editor who contracted him had told him, yellowed teeth showing behind a commercial smile.

Doyoung had had no other choice. 

And that’s how he had found himself there, in Neukkdomyeon, looking for what was going to be Shim Changmin ’s (investigator, historian, best-seller “writer”) newest hit under the collection of urban mythology books he had been releasing for a couple of years.

He frowned as he tried to figure out the first step of his plan of action.

Obviously, the places where he could get the most information from would be the library, and most likely the municipal office. He’d have to find out where they were. Museums could be useful, too. He decided he’d investigate a bit about it. Maybe he’d ask Johnny.

And if all of that failed…? Well, that was the hard part. If he couldn’t find what he needed there, he’d have to start interviewing the locals. This wouldn’t be any trouble usually for Doyoung. He considered himself someone socially apt, and witty enough to get some answers without making the other person realize he had given them. Some would even call him charismatic once he had a couple of shots of soju in his system.

He just couldn’t get off his mind what that cab driver had said to him.

_ We don’t really like strangers here. _

Granted, he had only met a handful of people here, counting said driver. But there was something about the way he said it that had led Doyoung to believe it. It had had to be a joke, no matter how seriously the man had said it. It was probably just him being paranoid over being in a new place.

With that in mind, he started writing a little list down in the notebook, using his favorite brand pen, the one the company gave him when they signed him. Next, he began writing down the basic questions he had to find the answers to, before starting to dig in deep. What exactly was the cult about, where it had come from, what they believed in. Why wolves. 

Wolves. 

He wondered if there were even wolves in Neukddomyeon. 

When Johnny had warned him, he didn’t specify of what. Animals, he had said, he had to be wary of them. But what kind of animals? At the time he had come to the conclusion that he must have been fucking with him, having fun scaring the new dude in town. He had seemed sincere, though, but… Doyoung was still having a hard time figuring him out.

For some reason, the memory of the nightmare he had had on his first night flashed in his mind. 

Fangs, claws, the happy whines, the blood dripping down his skin.

Doyoung shut his eyes close for a second and willed himself back into focus. At least now he had a clearer idea of what to do, and the whole investigation didn’t look as intimidating. He sent a small prayer to whatever god was listening to him, hoping it would be as simple as it looked.

His stomach churned. He didn’t think it would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> questions? complaints? all of them go here: https://curiouscat.me/pikwanchu !!
> 
> special thanks to billie eilish and her discography for getting me into the mood to edit this T_T
> 
> also im running a poll about this fic!! please [ vote here! ](https://twitter.com/pikwanchu/status/1218313416517017602)
> 
> thank u for all the kuddos, comments and bookmarks!! i really appreciate them, they rly will me into writting oof


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: semi-descriptive mentions of death

A few days later, Doyoung found himself walking through tall doors. The wood they were made of had been worn out, chipped over the varnish, and the faint smell that hit him when he’s inside matched it.

The town’s library wasn’t huge, but the shelves that divided it reached nearly to the roof. There were a couple tables with chairs, and even a computer (which sincerely surprised him). And behind the main counter, a young woman that blended a bit too much with it all.

She was plain looking, with a short curtain of hair, a couple of blonde streaks standing out of her dark brown color. She seemed to be minding her own business, her chin tucked down and her round glasses hanging on the tip of her nose, when Doyoung approached.

“Yes?”, she asked, looking up suddenly. There was a slight shine of surprise.

“Hi-Um.”, for what it felt like the hundredth time ever since he had arrived into Neukddomyeon, Doyoung felt an unfamiliar awkward aura tint his words, “I was looking for- history books? About this place?”

“About Korea?”, she frowned slightly.

“About this town.”

There was a sharp silence for a few seconds, in which she just stared at him, “We don’t have of those.”

Doyoung had a hard time hiding his surprise. After a beat, he tried again, “Newspapers? There must be an archive, right?” 

She sighed, and ended up asking “Is there anything in specific you’re trying to find, sir?” in a tone that suggested that she was going to try to make things as hard as manners allowed. Doyoung decided to play dumber than she was playing.

“Not really.”, he replied curtly. The woman looked at him for a few seconds and then told him to follow her. They walked up to the last of the shelves, and on the wall behind it, there was a door. She opened it, turned on the light, and Doyoung found so many cabinets it was impossible to tell how many of them were there just by glance. The entire wall was taken up by them, and it was so impressive Doyoung almost missed the desk, the chairs and the big window that also occupied the room. Like everything else in the library, they seemed old, worn out, and the smell of rotting paper was strong and stagnant, like they hadn’t smelled fresh air in a while.

“They are separated by year,”, she started, not really entering the room, “Each cabinet has a year, and there’s the last forty years in here. The newer editions are- Ah.”, she stopped herself, and her expression turned guilty, like she just made a mistake, “Perhaps you prefer to see those. Those are outside, in the second shelf, if you come with me-“ 

Doyoung raised an eyebrow in his mind.  _ She sounds so nervous all of a sudden _ . “No”, he cut her, “This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.”

He saw the woman gulp, resigned. “Alright.”, and with a small bow, she left Doyoung to himself.

The first thing he did was opening the window to let the fresh air in. It’s rather cold, but he couldn’t mind it, the freshness that came from outside helped the smell inside dissipate faster. Then, he went to examine the cabinets.

There was no indication of a date on any of them, so Doyoung had to make a guess to which would be the first and which the last. He went to the ones on the right, and reached up on the tip of his toes to open it. Empty. 

This gave him the hint where the oldest one was. He went to the first row on the left and crouched, opening the cabinet with excitement. And there they were.

Yellowed, of course, and each inside an individual bag to protect them from any damage. He took one bag out and noticed that wasn’t very heavy, which was understandable. It’s a town’s newspaper after all, there’s so much you could tell. 

He looked at the date, “February first, nineteen sixtytwo.”

So there were actually 40 years worth of newspapers there. It’s only then that it dawned on Doyoung just how many documents there are for him to inspect, and he felt overwhelmed. 

He put the old newspaper back and stopped to think. It would be easier if he had more information to work with, like festival dates, holiday days, really, anything of significance for the town, but he was under the high impression that even if he tried asking around for those, he wouldn’t get a proper answer. He ended up reaching to the conclusion that he had to examine at least a full year, and with that, figure out what to look for in the rest. He decided that picking up a more recent year would be better, and walked up to the middle of the metal wall the cabinets created, and opened one at random. 

It was from 1985. 

Walking up to the desk, he opened the bag, but when he took out the content, he was surprised by two newspapers. One was the one that he had seen before, but the other one was new. They had different names, too, and while the fonts and pictures that the first one used all pointed to be a more traditional type of print, the other one used a different font, less classic, and it seemed to be less cared for when it came to design, with different sizes of fonts everywhere.

He frowned. Opening it, he started checking the news in both, and found out that they were pretty much the same stories, but it was clear that while the first one –called  _ The Early Seeker _ \- had a more professional approach to the facts, the other one – whose title was simply  _ The Eye  _ -was subjective. It had more interviews, less pictures. It had an opinion column. It felt more genuine, somehow.

Leaving The Seeker aside, he started taking a deeper look into the other one. Apparently, rather than being a weekly edition, it would come out once every three weeks. The one Doyoung was holding didn’t have a very impressive number of edition, which had to mean it hadn’t ran for a very long time, compared to the other one.

In a second, Doyoung’s notebook was out, and his pen writing furiously all of that. With some quick math, he found out when it had been the first year edition of it, and went to find it.

  1. His fingers danced over the bags, trying to find the approximate month and… There, he found it. The first edition.



On the first pages it seemed pretty much like the other edition he had picked, but by the time he reached the last pages, he found an introduction text about the newspaper, and some information about the editors. They were all young people in their early twenties; one girl and two boys. They wrote, edited and printed the paper by themselves, and it seemed like one of the boys was married to the girl. Jiyong and Sandara. 

The point of the whole newspaper, as they said themselves, was to give readers another option from where inform themselves about the events happening in the town.They mentioned that they had been living in the town for less than a year, as well. They indeed sounded a bit young, a bit innocent. He’s reminded of himself, of when he first began studying. The note ends with a wish of enjoyment for all their readers and future readers, and the typical ‘Fighting!’.

He put back both newspapers where he took them from, and opened another cabinet, taking another package at random. He was interested in this different perspective The Eye’s editors mentioned. He spent the rest of the afternoon taking out different editions, comparing the newspapers, putting them back, and starting again. 

Before he knew it, there was a knock, and it was the receptionist –Wendy, as he learnt once he passed by her, by the golden nameplate he hadn’t noticed before hanging by her chest- telling him the library is about to close. It was not until he put back the last edition he was checking that he realized just how much his head ached. 

“What time is it?” he asked her, distractedly, as she was turning off the light and closing the room’s door behind him.

“Almost eight,” she supplied, curtly again. She walked him to the big wooden doors, and offered him a tight smile. “I hope you found what you were looking for.”, she mentioned, awkwardly, as if she really didn’t mean it.

Doyoung, too deep in his thoughts, gave a vague reply, and an even vaguer goodbye. His mind was busy, he was still thinking of The Eye and The Seeker. Comparing them, wondering. Without realizing, he soon found himself walking back to his house, as he tried to make sense of what he noticed. 

As he had seen before, the content was similar, but not the same at one hundred percent. The Seeker, he had found, preferred to turn to news related to the mayor, robbery, new shops, etcetera, while the Eye seemed to be more into investigation. They seemed to be more focused on whatever was the town’s police latest case, following closely behind them. That wasn’t surprising. 

He had been surprised, though, when he came upon a murder. It had been a man in his fourties, and he had been found in the woods, blood and guts all over the place, like he had been attacked by something that couldn’t handle any type of weapon aside from whatever it had been born with. It had been catalogued as an animal attack. That wasn’t the surprising part.

What had surprised him was that , while the Eye had held a full coverage lasting almost two entire pages, The Seeker had written a tiny little article of no more than three paragraphs, on one side of one of the last pages. 

He’d have thought that something like that would have been important enough for at least a longer article, especially when it happened in a small town like Neukddomyeon. It was someone that must have been known by a fair amount of people, after all. 

That left a funny feeling in his stomach, and a weird buzz in his mind. He’d have to come back to investigate that a bit more. 

The next morning Doyoung woke up to a headache. 

It wasn’t surprising considering how long had he stayed inside that dull room the day prior, and thus he decided to take the morning to go on a walk on the center of the town. With his wallet and his black notebook sure inside the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder, he ventured in.

He had figured out that walking the entire town back and forth couldn’t take longer than three hours, three and a half at most. Mostly, he wanted to explore. He didn’t know if there were any museums or places he could go for some history (his map was useless in this point, and the internet research had been fruitless at best), so there was nothing else he could do. Right after that, after some fresh air had reached his brain, he could try going to the library.

True to his assumptions, the trip ended up being on the shorter side, reaching the center of the town within fourty minutes. It was nothing but a street that was bigger than the rest, almost exclusively crowded with shops. There was a modern looking bar on one of the five blocks it consisted on that stood out proudly, and diagonally opposed to it, the town hall. Doyoung thought that it was appropriate how the bar looked almost right out of Seoul and the other building like it never got a renovation since it was built.

In that sense, it matched with the library. It didn’t look like it was falling down, but there was something about the humidity marks, in the structure and the old, heavy looking wooden doors that still gave that impression. 

He shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was once he was able to walk into the place. The reception was empty, except for a man about his age, maybe younger, playing with a videogame, sitting behind the desk. He didn’t want to bother him, since trying to see the mayor was out of question (at least yet?), so he ended up stalling for a little, looking around. 

The big room (with wooden walls, yellowish lights, altogether ancient looking and feeling) had some pedestals with objects enclosed in glass boxes. When Doyoung came closer, he realized it was a makeshift museum of sorts, and the pieces inside the boxes corresponded to events that happened about the beginning of the century. A fossilized flower, a piece of document. A gun.

Doyoung’s attention was diverted when he found some pamphlets and fliers on top of one of the pedestals. He almost ran to them, happy to find something more tangible, but once he had picked one of each of them to examine at home, he looked up to find the receptionist boy looking at him. There was no expression on his face, aside from a slight surprise, and a slight glint of inspection, but half a second later, he was back to his game. 

Doyoung suddenly got nervous again. He thanked, quietly, and left once again.

Any hunger he might have had vanished, not unusual for him, because as soon as he walked to the front of the bar he felt unfit for it, very unusual for him. It was an intimidating feeling he hadn’t felt since high school, at least. Like he was avoiding the cool kids table, who would beat him up for looking twice.

He found himself feeling that kind of anxiety quite a lot, he realized as he dragged himself towards the library (a mere ten streets away), ever since he came to Neukkdomyeon. It was a heavy feeling on his stomach at times, and the pulse in his neck getting heavier and faster, at others, and it was as unpleasant as ever. The only type of calm he’d feel with any interaction there it was when he was with Johnny.

Arriving to the library and getting inside the room was uneventful, almost like had been victim of Wendy’s inconvenienced looks since forever. In a second, he whipped out his notebook, his pen and the last newspapers he had looked at the day before. He was ready to find out what had happened to The Eye. 

“I can do this”, he eased himself, and like that he began.

Taking up from where he left off the day before was harder than he thought it would be. He couldn’t for the life of him remember the exact date of the last edition he had read, he had had to do with a vague memory of the last cabinet he had opened. He had decided to ditch the other newspaper for now, there was something about the way it was written that made Doyoung wonder how much useful it could be.

It took him embarrassingly long to realize that down to the last two months, the editions hadn’t been as constant and organized as they had been until then. Some weeks the number of pages decreased notoriously, some other weeks there was no edition at all. 

It didn’t look like simple thoroughlessness. Looking at some editions with more care, it looked as if some pages were meant to have more text than they had, being replaced by disarranged pictures or blank spaces. 

Then it clicked for Doyoung. The broken editions lacked something the others didn’t. They lacked the follow-ups to murder cases previously shown.

That rang a couple bells in Doyoungs mind, and he quickly wrote names and dates and whichever information could help him later on to find out more about them. Choi Siwon, gutted in the woods. Kim Ryeowook, found nearby a river. Unidentified female body, completely dismembered and too decomposed to be recognized. 

And then, he opened the last edition. Seo Jungkwon, toraxical cavity completely emptied, a couple ribs even broken, throat completely destroyed, missing a leg and several, several bite marks all over his body. Doyoung felt something in his stomach churn, the taste of bile brushing the low of his neck at the gruesome description. 

This man seemed to have been well known and loved by the people in the town. He had some municipal charge, and he seemed to be headed to be the next chief of police. He was someone. The report from The Eye gave a full description, along with self made theories of what kind of animal could have done that… And how it could even get to the point that he was left like that. The whole report took up almost five pages of the entire edition, making it one of the thickest ones Doyoung had picked. 

But after that one, nothing.

He felt his pulse pick up as his fingers ran over the newspapers, looking for the Wolf’s edition of the same dates. He took all the newspapers for the entire month and frantically began turning the pages around, trying to find everything and anything about Seo Jungkwon. 

And he did find a one page article about his death. No details, no dates, nothing much about the murder, aside from that it happened. And the rest of the article was just a quick overlook of all the things he did for their little community, with a goodbye message from the Police Department for him. 

It sat bad on Doyoung. So they had spoken to the PD, yet there were no important details. 

But why?

He knew why. He really knew why. They had to be trying to hide something. 

His pulse began ringing against his ears with the realization, and he felt the headache coming back. There was something turning, something brewing in his mind, some sort of hypothesis that he needed to give body to. There was something right there in front of him but he couldn’t see it. 

The reason, he thought, he needed to know the reason. There was nothing else of importance in the edition aside from that one article, it had to be that article that got the whole magazine shut down. But why? It hadn’t been disrespectful towards police Seo, nor his family. It didn’t have any type of shady information. It clearly stated what the writer considered her own theories of what had happened. It did mention that the cops hadn’t conceded the information easily, but then again, almost every article had the same complaint. 

Why was this one the drop that spilled the glass? 

He decided to give the article another read, this time more careful, taking notes of main points and it’s the first time his attention was called by a specific part of it. In the theories part there was a whole page dedicated to figuring out what animal had marked the body, with several pictures of bites of different animals… And one of them were wolves.

The match was perfect, they had to be wolf bites. 

Could this…? 

Doyoung dropped the newspaper all of a sudden, suddenly anxious. Disrespecting  _ wolves _ ? Insinuating that they could cause  _ harm _ ? It couldn’t be, it was common knowledge that they were hunting animals. A wolf killing a person wasn’t unheard of. The supposed cult for them (which was still, like most of the information he had on this town, a Schrödinger’s cat situation) couldn’t possibly take offense on that. Could it?

Could a cult take down an entire editorial, not allow them to release articles, refuse to give information just to protect their priced animal? People couldn’t possibly lack so much self awareness these days, could they?

He felt the sharp pain over his forehead ache once again. And then, suddenly, the door opened.

“We are closing, sir.”, Wendy informed, somehow agitated. For the first time, Doyoung acknowledged the rise and fall of his own chest, as he let out a breath and nodded at her.

“Can I take one of these home?”, he said in over a whisper. 

“I’m afraid it’s not allowed, sir. It’s archive.”, Doyoung noticed the way her hand was twisting her own index. He just replied with a curt nod, and that sent the secretary away. He felt barely conscious as he cleared up the mess of magazines he made, and before he realized, he was walking out the tall door.

He registered the fact that it was dark outside when he saw a big pair of headlights coming onto the road, and the engine that went with them stop right in front of him.

A honk, “Hey, Doyoung!”, and a familiar face comes out of the window, “Need a ride?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wheeeeeeew im sorry this chapter was so long and i know it seems liek its filler but i swear it's not!!!!!!  
> by the way if anyone is confused, this story takes place around 2000-2003. 
> 
> i hope you guys are liking it so far!! please leave kuddos and comments, id love to know what you guys are thinking about this so far... is it boring? is it intriguing? what do u guys think of johnny :0?
> 
> see u guys next week!! thank u for reading!! 
> 
> complaint box: https://curiouscat.me/pikwanchu


	4. Chapter 4

Doyoung blinked twice before climbing inside. 

The inside of Johnny’s truck was warm, not unbearably so, but Doyoung couldn’t get himself to relax enough to enjoy it. Johnny drove with both hands on his wheel, and even in that weather, the sleeves on his plaid button up were rolled up. Like that, his arms and his hands seemed enormous.

“You seem stressed,” the older started, “Was that cliffhanger _that_ bad?”. Doyoung turned to him, confused, to which Johnny hurried to add, “Since you were in the library…”

“Oh”, Doyoung felt his brain restarting, “I wasn’t reading books. I was… um, investigating.”

He saw one of Johnny’s thick eyebrows lifting without looking away from the road, “Huh? What were you trying to find?”

“Just… stuff”. Something pushed him to avoid a direct answer, “Nothing specific. I’m- I’ve just been having this headache for a couple of days…”

“Hmm”, Johnny muttered, hand reaching down the gear, moving here, there, going back to the wheel again. He didn’t seem to catch Doyoung’s change of topic, “You aren’t catching a cold, are you?”

Suddenly, Doyoung’s house road appeared in front of him, “No, I don’t think so… I guess it’s just being inside all day.”, he gave a small chuckle, trying to lighten up the statement. Even so, when the pickup stopped and he opened his door, he heard the other one slam. 

“Let me make sure you get home safe,” Johnny explained, as he solidified in front of him. “Or more like, let me make sure you don’t faint the second you step foot in.”

Doyoung smiled a little at that, not sure why. He wasn’t used to people taking care of him, so he wasn’t sure how to refuse the help, and that’s how he ended up with the older sitting on his kitchen table, once again, as he reheated some of the food he had left in tidy containers in the fridge.

Johnny whistled, “Wow, you gave a nice cleaning to grandma’s house.”. Doyoung settled a plate in front of him, and several tiny dishes around, with servings. “She’ll love it… if she ever sets foot back in.”

This came as a bit of a shock to Doyoung; he had thought the woman had passed away. “Oh? Is she living far?”

“Nah,”, Johnny replies, “ She went back to live with me and mom after Grandpa passed away. Whoever comes into this town never leaves, you know.”, he finished the statement with a wink. Doyoung laughed awkwardly at the joke. “She’s a nice old lady, you’d love to meet her.”

Doyoung thought back to the only other experience he had with an old lady in Neukddomyeon, and internally made a face. He wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so he just hummed, and took out his black notebook, as the older one began eating. 

Now that he was calmer and went back to the notes he had taken, he was relieved to find he had actually written down a big portion of the important things he had found. And to his shock, between the dates and names, he found an address. It was The Eye’s address, that he now clearly remembered to have written the day before, as soon as he had found that they had it printed on the back of the cover of every edition. 

“Hey, do you know where this is?”, he shoved the book in front of Johnny’s face, casually holding it in a way that covered most of his notes. He held it close enough for him to be able to read it, but not close enough for him to feel the need of grabbing it. Johnny frowned a little while reading it. 

“I know the street.”, he replied, “But I’m not sure what’s in this exact direction.”

“Could you take me tomorrow?”, he asked, as he felt a rush of boldness wash over him, “Whenever you have time, I mean. I can adjust. Flexible schedule and all.”

Johnny seemed to consider it for a few seconds, and before he could add anything, he just replied, “Yeah, sure. Lunch time sounds good?”

“Sounds perfect.”

Doyoung woke up the following morning earlier than he expected. He had set up the old digital clock alarm to go at 10 a.m. but somehow, it was 9.17 and he had been awake for at least 20 minutes now. 

After eating (and after several compliments from Johnny), the older had taken his leave in favor of a shower and bed, and Doyoung had done pretty much the same. Usually, showers worked to get him relaxed and ready to bed, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about the Eye. Even as he massaged his hair into foam, fingers harsher than usual, he just couldn’t steer his mind away from it. He kept going over all the data, all the dates, all the information he could remember, half tempted to run naked to his notebook and re-read it. 

His mind felt like a table with puzzle pieces all thrown into a pile. He knew that they had to be a coherence to them, but he just couldn’t figure out what. He also felt like he didn’t have all the pieces yet, but that was a given. In most long cases, there was always pieces of information that had to be hypothesized, and that hypothesis is what it had to be used as a compass to find the proof. 

Doyoung felt like he needed to process all of the information he had now to be able to make his hypothesis. But there was also a weird sense of rush that took over him ever since he found the library’s archives. 

And that gut feeling was later on proved right, as he stood in front of the library an hour later after waking up. Or more like, in front of the tall doors firmly closed, and a paper covering the doorknob, reading:

“CLOSED FOR REPAIRS.”

Brief and to the point, Doyoung thought, and in strong black letters. He almost felt like the poster was personally directed at him, almost hostile. He forced himself to turn around and not take it personally. It’s not like most people knew he’s even in Neukddomyeon, much less that he’d been using their public library. A cold gust of wind brushes over him, and he presses the fake cheap fur hood of his jacket closer his neck, not welcoming the shiver that threatened to run down his spine.

After a couple of minutes of consideration, he turned around and began pacing back into the center of the town, anger growing inside of him. It was like everything was turning against him and his investigation, first the people being unresponsive, then the library… He just wanted to find some crazy cult, for crying out loud, not everyone’s credit card information or something. 

Without thinking, he took a different route, and happened to walk by Old Joo’s supermarket. He could recognize it easily, as its square red columns stood out greatly against the Neukddomyeon landscape due of the saturated of their red. 

Because he still wasn’t thinking, and because he needed the comfort of bright lights that reminded him of the familiar Daiso on his street back in Seoul, he walked in. Immediately, the brilliant familiar white of it all and the colorful packages of the different packages greeted him, and to his surprise, Old Joo didn’t. ‘To his surprise’, because she wasn’t there. 

It took a bit of a self pep talk to get his feet into the actual store and walking around the aisles. He was seeing without really watching, still trying to calm down the rise of irrational anger he felt before. Of course things were going to be hard for him there. If the information had been easily available, there would be no point in writing a book about it. 

He just needed to be smart about it. He was going to talk to more people, start going to bars, shops, socialize. He could ask Johnny for the hot spots in the town and visit there. Maybe he should find out who his neighbors were and talk to them as well. Just because people looked hostile in this town it didn’t mean he couldn’t worm himself into some futile friendships. He needed to get rid of whatever irrational feelings that we’re making him act unlike in Seoul.

Picking some baking ingredients, some soda cans and a bottle of water, he began walking back to the register machine, only to bump into Jeno as soon as he turned around the corner.

“Ooof-Oh!”, the younger opened his eyes big, as he heard the noise of the cans he had been holding in his hands, and let out a hurried “I’m sorry sir!”, as he bowed really low.

Doyoung felt a slight sense of deja vu, that he quickly ignored. _Wanted to socialize?_ , he thought to himself, _Better start now._

“Jeno!” he greeted, letting his lips bloom into a smile, “How have you been, buddy?”

The kid looked at him in surprise, taken aback by Doyoung’s sudden openness. Doyoung glanced one more time at him before letting his eyes roam at the sauce cans on the aisle, to allow him some time to recover.

It worked well, because after a few seconds he heard:

“I-I’ve been fine, sir”

As Doyoung kept the small talk, he noticed how they younger boy kept glancing around. For a second, he wondered if his boss had banned him from talking to the outsider, or something. How far-fetched would that be?

Thankfully, Jeno seemed to ease as the conversation kept going. Just as he suspected, Jeno seemed like an insecure teen, all soft spoken and shoulders slightly tense. He found this slightly adorable, and he found himself wishing his own teen awkwardness had been like that, instead of the angsty seclusion it actually was. Thankfully, that was all in the past. 

At the cash machine, Doyoung remembered that he needed to ask someone about the memorial days and special dates to look up in the newspapers, but he decided that that should be a conversation for next time. After purchasing his items, he felt a slight sense of victory when he saw the small, shy smile the kid gave him when he left. 

Yes, he could do this. He was going to find out what was going on in Neukkdomyeon.

At 2 p.m. sharp, Johnny’s grey Isuzu parked in front of his house, and Doyoung waited for a horn sound that never came as he put on his coat once again. He was slightly excited, mind full of questions he’d make to whoever was living there, if there was anyone still, and he couldn’t stop the feeling to make his stomach churn. 

The feeling intensified when he climbed into the pick-up, Johnny’s eyes already buried in him as he clicked on his seatbelt and he turned to smile at him. 

“Ready?”, Johnny asked, without smiling. Doyoung felt his smile turn nervous as his fingers played with the leather of his notebook, so he simply nodded big and looked ahead. Johnny started his engine. 

Neukkdomyeon was bigger than it seemed like, Doyoung realized, as they drove past the parts he had already seen, and was slightly familiar. But then, Johnny turned in a different corner and they were on a highway surrounded by the woods.

The lack of conversation was doing nothing good to doyoung, and he suddenly wondered if he was imposing over the elder. 

“Johnny?”, he started. He made a noise of acknowledgement, and Doyoung continued, “I-I’m sorry for inconveniencing you.”, he blurted, “And thank you...”

Johnny turned to him and he had the hint of a smile on his lips, “Oh, don’t worry about that, Doyoung.”, his voice sounded sincere, “Work was just… You know, those days.”

“Ah, yes. Definitely.” Doyoung sighed in relief in his mind. “Still, thank you.”

Johnny gave him a quick smile, and his eyes were back on the road. After some seconds, doyoung couldn’t resist himself, and asked, “What do you do?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, for work.” 

“Oh, you know. Here and there.”, he made a vague gesture with his left hand, “I mostly help my mom. She works for the townshall, and someday I’ll take over.”

Doyoung raised his eyebrows, “That’s impressive!”

“Yeah.”, he agreed, with a small smile, eyes lost on the road. The pick up turned, and they were on a street again, “She actually took over after my dad passed away.”

“Oh.” Doyoung mused, suddenly understanding Johnny’s melancholic eyes. “I’m really sorry.”

Johnny showed a bit of a smirk, “Don’t sweat it. I was like five, really young.” Before Doyoung could add anything, he parked, and let out a sigh. “We’re here.”

Doyoung smiled gratefully at him one last time, before opening his door and getting out. Smile that faded away as soon as he saw what was in front of him.

Frantically, he picks up his notebook again, and checks the address, the street, the number. Yes, this was the place. It was here. It was _here_. He feels the heat of Johnny behind him. He feels himself pale. He feels his hands starting to shake.

“It’s-”

It was burned down. 

The place was completely burned down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday doyoung!! i hope all good things come to you in this upcoming year, and im sorry for making u suffer so much in this fic!!!!!!!! 
> 
> this chapter was kind of short, i apologize for that! also, i might take a 3 week break from posting, because i have a final next week and then some vacations. im sorry for that, please dont forget me!!  
> thank u for the comments on last chapter and i hope u guys are being entertained by this. the plot thickens some more, and things just get weirder and weirder for dy, huh?  
> anyways, thank u for reading and please leave comments/kuddos! they really help me get on writing when im feeling uninspired lmao!! 
> 
> ttyl! 
> 
> pd: questions?? here https://curiouscat.me/pikwanchu


	5. Chapter 5

Not knowing how, Doyoung found himself inside of what remained of the old house, hands dirty and shaking from examining the ashed remains.

It was a two floor, not too big, and it had clearly been used as the printing office. He could see the old printing machine, old metal pieces remaining but turned over, as if they had been trashed. There was ash, so much ash that he could feel it climbing into his nostrils and closing his throat.

Johnny walked behind him, silently, as if respecting his space. Doyoung wondered if he was visibly shaking. These people… These young people had been done this by someone. They had seen too much, said too much, and these were the consequences. These kids from outside of town had gone a step too far, a dive too deep.

And they had been done this. House, belongings completely burnt down.

Despite it being half burnt, Doyoung climbed the stairs and found two rooms in there. And in the couple’s room, on the floor, next to the scorchered bed, a frame and a picture. Jiyong, Dara & Seunghyun, May of 1974.

_“Let’s make good memories away from the sturdy city!”_

Doyoung felt his eyes water.

The two men were dressed in button ups, the shorter one with a floral print, and the taller one fully white. The girl, a long pencil skirt. They were laughing, hugged against each other. They looked young and naive. They could have been any of his college’s classmates.

They could very well have been him.

“Doyoung?”, he heard Johnny walking upstairs, and his hands quickly turned the frame to let the picture free and into his pocket. It proved harder than he expected, his fingers feeling cold and numb, and he just couldn’t work the-

“Doyoung!” The older walked in just as he held the old picture in his hand, the startle making the frame fall and crash in a million pieces on his feet.

Much despite himself, he ended up crushing the picture in his palm, his hands instantly fisting and hiding into his jacket’s pockets. Johnny looked at him and his frown instantly turned deeper. “Hey,”, he walked closer, “you’re crying?” It sounded more like a question than like a statement, his stare too worried and the hand he placed on his shoulder too heavy for Doyoung to be able to hold his stare.

The writer touched his cheeks and felt the wetness covering them. “Oh,” he muttered, slightly surprised, “I think I am.”

The hand on his shoulder slid down to the middle of his back, and further down as Johnny began walking, guiding him.

“Come on, let’s get out of here."

The ride home was absolutely silent. Doyoung barely felt the length of it, though, mind constantly going to the picture clenched in his fist inside his pocket. There was also a vexatious feeling in his stomach, something lurking similar to nausea and heaviness at the same time.

He muttered some words of gratefulness as soon as they arrived in front of the wooden front, and slipped out of the mobile without realizing. Before he knew, he was sliding down the door, sitting on the floor and hugging his knees.

He felt a shiver run down his spine and his breath hitch, as his mind went to the ashen wreckage he had seen just minutes before. He looked at his fingers tips, darkened with remains instead of the familiar rosy tone, as if they were a reminder that yes, indeed, that evening did happen and it hadn’t been just another one of the grim nightmares that kept harassing him more often than not.

He passed his fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp, pulling gently, trying to figure out what to do. What that fire meant for him, what he should do next. Should he ditch the entire investigation and run from this town that didn’t want him there? He couldn’t do that unless he wanted to lose his job, and possibly his career. Nobody wanted a journalist that gave up on a case, much less a writer that abandoned projects mid-way.

He took out the picture and straightened it between fingers.

Examining it again, he could feel its datedness. He took his time letting his eyes wander through it, taking in the details, familiarizing himself with it in a weak attempt to numb himself from it. Just like the picture, the fire had been a long time ago.

‘Maybe people changed’, he thought to himself, more as reassurance than anything else, eyes still scanning the picture, ‘Maybe they had intended to just scare them and it got out of hand. They aren’t dead, for all I know.’

There was a forced resolve mixing itself in his stomach, much too similar to the dread of a guilty criminal as they are getting their sentence. Even if he was scared, he had to do this. It was just going to be a couple months, and then he could escape back to Seoul, to his shitty apartment and the noisy streets. It wasn’t like he was going to stay for good.

With this new streak of rhinestone courage, he finally stood up. His legs were shaking but Doyoung decided it was the cold inside the house.

His hands weren’t shaking anymore, but they felt weirdly numb, fingers hard to move, as he still clenched the picture between them. After a few tries at turning the stove on, he stood by it, hoping to be the first thing to catch its warm, and he held it to his face.

Could the picture be useful? When he pocketed it, it had been out of reflex, almost hiding, when Johnny had approached. He wasn’t sure what had prompted it. But it didn’t really contain any more information, aside from the names and a date. Maybe he could tell his editor to try to find out about them. Maybe he could interview them once he got back to Seoul.

If… If they were alive, that is.

But for now, he ended up deeming the picture useless. He’d just keep it for later.

Warmed up, he went to leave the picture inside his leather notebook, and as he was thinking of a shower, he heard the phone ring.

He ran to the living room, where the red phone was situated over a tiny table. It was one of the old ones, and Doyoung had initially thought it was decoration, but he was surprised the first day to find that after connecting it that it actually had tone.

He picked it, and he heard a familiar voice.

“Hello? Doyoung? Doyoung?”, the raspy voice of his editor sounded through the speaker, always a bit louder than necessary.

“Yes sir, it’s me.”

“Listen,” he began, and Doyoung already felt the nagging voice he was about to use, “I’ve been trying to call you all day long! I called at least five times!”

“I-I’ve been…”, Doyoung swallowed, trying to find the rhinestone courage once again, “I’ve been out investigating today.”

“ Well, then, that has to mean that you have a lot of material already, huh?”, the man said, “Send it to me. Right now.”

Doyoung swallowed. “I don’t think I have enough…”

“Listen, Doyoung, Mr. Changmin called and said he wanted to see how the investigation was going. Do you know him? Shim Changmin? Bestselling author in Korea in since 1999? “ his boss’s voice suddenly gushed cruel sarcasm, “The man making stopping you from serving us coffee all day long?”

Doyoung felt a knot in his throat, “Y-yes… I just-“, he stopped himself once again, not knowing how to express himself. “People here are being… difficult.”

“Weren’t you a journalist before? Or was that a lie?”, the old man fired back, “Or was that a lie?”

“No, I was.”, Doyoung was quick to respond, “It’s just that… They don’t like strangers in here, and people are very-“

“Look, Doyoung, You’re investigating a _cult_. Do you know where the word _cult_ comes from? From _occult_! “. Doyoung frowned, wondering if he should correct the old man or not. “You can’t expect people to just serve you the information, damn it. Why would we write a book about things people will willingly tell you?”

“I’ll work harder, boss.”, Doyoung finally ended up saying.

His boss sighed, making a show off his annoyance. “Don’t you have anything at all? _Anything_?”

“I actually…”, Doyoung suddenly remembered the journalists, “I have the names of some people. But I need to know if they are alive or not, or where they work, because they don’t live here anymore-“

Suddenly, a laugh bursted from the speaker, “What?!”, his boss’s voice was mocking again, “Doyoung, are you asking me to do your job?”

The younger felt a trail of venom running down his throat, “No, sir.”

“Good, good.”, he said, “Now go and get to work, already. I’ll tell Shim Changmin to wait until Monday, but this is all I’m giving you, just because I’m nice and you’re new here.”

“…Thank you, boss.” Doyoung mumbled, slightly humiliated.

The scalping water wasn’t enough to wipe out the stress he had felt that day. Doyoung had to force himself to relax under the hot shower, memories of the burnt house assaulting his mind every few minutes.

He got out once he began feeling the water turning colder, and wrapped himself in his thickest towel. The house was too big for a single stove to be enough to warm it up, much unlike his own apartment, and he kept forgetting to turn the stove in the room he slept in with anticipation. This is how he’d always end up in his pajamas and some extra layers of big hoodies and thick scarves.

It was still much too early to go to sleep, so he found himself bundled on the sofa, VHS about to begin ( _You Only Live Twice_ , he happened to find a rather large collection of James Bond's movies, much to his luck), when he heard a knock on the door. He frowned, confused, but got up to open regardless.

It was Johnny.

“Hi…?”, he looked up, quizzed.

“Put on a coat,”, the older simply said, “I wanna show you something.”

In the middle of the woods, the grass grew thicker than Doyoung expected. He could feel it cushion his trainers as he took each step, trailing after Johnny, the sensation not unlike walking on an expensive carpet.

He was sure the tip of his nose was red from the cold, dry and bone-chilling, but thanks to the walk and the thick jacket Johnny had lent him (since it seemed like none of his was warm enough, according to him) he couldn’t say he was uncomfortable. The woods weren’t as dark as he had expected, either, illuminated by the strength of the moon, but just as .

Looking upwards to the sky, so impossibly full of stars, he had to admit that living in a tiny town could have its advantages.

However, it didn’t feel like it was enough lighting to be wandering around like they were. Johnny’s steps were steel resolute, the same as if he was walking home on the street on broad daylight, and Doyoung wondered just how much time of his life he had spent in there for them to be familiar as they were for him.

“You must have had a lot of fun with your friends here.” he commented, and he saw Johnny’s step freeze for a mili-second, before turning to him.

“What?”, he smiled. Like that, his profile was highlighted by the moon, the elegant curve of his nose and the thick of his lips on full exposure. Doyoung couldn’t help to wish he was as handsome as he was.

“You seem to know this place really well,” Doyoung explained with a small smile of his own, leaning on his hand against a tree, slightly breathless, “You must have spent a lot of time here.”

“Well…”, Johnny fully turned to him, crossing his arms, “Can’t say I didn’t.”. There was a hint of amusement in his tone, “Let’s keep going, we’re almost there.”

True to his word, it took about ten more minutes of walking until the taller turned to him with a small smile, holding some thick branches back as if they were a door. Doyoung stopped, wondering for the first time what was what he wanted to show him.

Johnny made a move with his head, long hair swinging, inviting him in, and he crossed it, but froze at his first step.

It wasn’t the huge lake, surrounding the entire area, taking over it as if everything ended in it. It wasn’t the wall of pinecones, intimidating, almost as if they were protecting this place. It wasn’t even the silhouette of the mountains behind, so far and blurred by the dense fog that surrounded everything.

It was the moon.

The moon taking over the lake, so pale and blinding against its surface. So demanding of attention, so impossibly bright, even not at its fullest.

“Pretty, right?”

Doyoung was only able to nod. He felt Johnny walking in front of him as he stayed taking in the scenery, and gently pressing on his elbow, making Doyoung walk down to the shore with him. The hill wasn’t too inclined, but the older’s help wasn’t unwelcome either way.

They reached it and sat down. Johnny didn’t say anything for a long time, and Doyoung appreciated it. The scent of the woods in winter, fresh, thin, entered through his nose, filling his lungs, and making him feel a thousand times lighter as it left.

He felt his head more clear than it had felt in ages, all the pressure it had been feeling the last few days gone.

After a while, after Doyoung let out a long sigh, Johnny spoke.

“This is kind of my place,”, he mentioned, “I come here to clear my head, you know?”

Doyoung nodded, “I can see why.”, he let himself fall on his back, caring very little for his still wet hair, “It really is…” Doyoung found himself loss of words. He couldn’t explain the feel of security, the feel of looseness that took over him as soon as he walked in without feeling uncomfortable. “Why did you bring me here?”

He turned to Johnny, for the first time after a while, and he saw him smiling, strangely prideful at him. “I don’t know.”, he shrugged. “I guess… I just wanted to show you that…”

“That?”

“That not everything in this town is terrible.”

Doyoung fell silent, the sudden realization that Johnny knew he was scared hitting him. He scowled at himself, regretting not being able to hide his shock better in the editorial, even though not sure why. He didn’t want Johnny to think he was scared, or suspicious, or even distasted by the town. And the exact reason why was somewhere between not wanting Johnny to feel saddened by someone thinking like that of his home, and something else he couldn’t really place.

“I don’t think everything in this town is terrible.”, Doyoung said, placating, “I… know people get protective of what’s theirs. It’s normal.”, he stood up, as he spoke. “Besides, in this town there’s also you.”

Johnny turned to him, and to Doyoung’s surprise, he was grinning, delighted. “You really think so?”

Doyoung felt slightly overwhelmed, “Yeah.”

Johnny let out a laugh, big and explosive, the first one he’d heard in the entire day, and it eased him. He watched as he stood up, and offered a hand to help Doyoung do the same.

“It’s getting kind of late, right?”, Johnny pressed his hand slightly before letting it go, “Let’s head back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiiiiiiii im back!!   
> first of all, apologies for such a short chapter... ive gotten a new project to do and its been KILLING me.   
> on the other hand, because of this i have to say that updates will be done every two weeks from now on.
> 
> anyway FINALLY we get more intimate johndo interactions!! how do u guys feel about johnny? still wary of him? 
> 
> thank u so much for everyone who has been keeping up with this fic and special thanks to those who are commenting and leaving kuddos!! you guys are amazing. 
> 
> see u in a couple weeks!!!!!!!!!!!


	6. Interlude I

**_Under the moon_ ** _  
_  
  


It was _him_.

He lifted his face upwards, feeling the silver light bathing him. Her energy made his muscles tense up, beg for a run, beg for a release, as his nose, attentive, kept catching a thread of that scent. _His_ scent.

He felt a shiver run down his back, up to the end of his tail. He let out a growl.

It was him, he felt it, he _knew_ it. He felt it on his scent, on the way it mingled so perfectly with his, on the way it snaked around him and tied him in a tight collar, pulling him to him.

He wanted him for himself.

He let a wanton sound this time, almost hurt, as the thought energized him, and he began running, body begging to move, to do something about it. It was him. It had to be him. He _had_ to be his _now_.

The small part of human in him pulled the proverbial leash on him, and made him run the other way, the exact opposite to where the scent – _his scent_ – pulled him to, and he let out another hurt whine, but obliged. He was right. His reason was right. He couldn’t, not just yet.

The thought of it, though; the thought of having him between his claws, under him. Of running his human hands through his flesh, of his mark on him, of his _need_ for him being satisfied. Just those thoughts made him turn _insane_ , made him lose all control.

He could at least allow himself all these thoughts at moments like these, when the Moon turned him into his other self, bind him to crawl back to his purest instincts, back into his roots. And he thanked Her for that, thankful for the rough reminder of who he was, as his claws dug into the earth with each leap and his lungs burned with exhortation.

But he needed to wait. He had to wait. He couldn’t do it all at once, couldn’t show make him his, couldn’t worship him like his instinct begged him to. He let out a howl, distressed and melancholic, because he longed for him badly, especially in nights like these.

But he’d wait for him.

It was _him_ , after all, he’d _finally_ found him. And it was going to be _him_.

His mate.


	7. Chapter 7

Doyoung dreamed of a wolf. He couldn’t see what kind of wolf it was, how it looked, anything aside from the fact that it was a wolf and that it wasn’t a bad wolf. It wasn’t an aggressive wolf. And so, Doyoung let it feed from him.

The wolf accepted, greedily, as it buried its muff in Doyoung’s chest, ripping his shirt and skin open without a care, and Doyoung watched as its fur stated tinting in red with his blood. There was a sense of urgency clouded by a stronger dreamlike numbness.

Then, the wolf suddenly wasn’t a wolf. It was a man, and his hands were red, his clothes were red, and they weren’t in the woods anymore, they were in the house Doyoung was staying. He could see his blood spilled neatly in a pool on the floor, cascading calmly along the sofa, and when he went back to the man’s face (a face he couldn’t remember), he saw him smile with warm eyes.

Doyoung woke up, and his heart was racing.

It was loud. Loud, enclosed, and the smell of smoke was starting to reach into Doyoung’s lungs and dry them, or so he felt.

“This is so you won’t lose me, alright?”, Johnny said, as he grabbed Doyoung’s wrist and began venturing between the bodies of people. Nobody was really dancing, but they all loitered like they were, different types of glasses in different hands, the distinctive buzz of conversation being drowned by the music.

What surprised Doyoung the most was the actual quantity of people inside the bar, especially for a Sunday. Especially for Neukddomyeon. There were almost as many as in any bar in Gangnam, and more people than he had seen in all of his stay yet. The way Johnny walked made it seem like the sea of people was parting for him.

Doyoung still didn’t know exactly how had he been dragged into that situation. He just remembered being in Johnny’s house, his internet cable plugged into his laptop, trying to send his boss whatever little thing he had found yet squeezed into a single document of no less than twenty pages (they ended up being thirty), sleep deprived. Next thing he knew, he had agreed to get picked up after a long nap (an awful, restless nap, thanks to his worst nightmare yet).

Johnny stopped in front of the counter, and there were three people waiting for him.

“Hey guys,” Johnny saluted, casually, “This is Doyoung. I told you about him.”

One of the men, tan and lean, eyed him up and down, face stoic, and took a gulp of the drink in his hand, “You did.”

Doyoung felt his lips stretch into a polite smile, the best he could muster underneath his eye bags, as he tried to tell himself to ignore the way the man had just scanned him up and down, and bowed slightly. Johnny introduced him to the rest of the group, Yoonoh and Sunyoung. The tan one was introduced as Jongin.

The woman, Sunyoung, was short, wearing a high ponytail and striking bangs. Something in her made her feel taller, imposing, even as she stood in the middle of the other two, who were as tall as Doyoung was. Yoonoh was pale and handsome, movie star-like, even as his face was crowned by a slight frown. The frown, Doyoung realized, was shared by the three of them.

A pregnant silence landed, louder than the beat of old r’n’b music in the background, and Doyoung felt scrutiny bathing him. He could feel their eyes, but when he dared look up from his feet, he realized that they were actually on Johnny, standing behind him.

“I’m Doyoung…”, he nearly stuttered, beating himself for the weakness in his voice, eyes wandering between the three of them, “I am…”

“From Seoul.” Sunyoung cut him, “Johnny told us.”

Doyoung swallowed, and he felt his smile tightening, “Ah-“

Suddenly, the girl sitting in the stool next to them turned around, drink in hand.

“You didn’t tell us you were bringing him.” she had long, black hair reaching down to her lower back, and a tight dress. She was pretty, Doyoung thought, but the annoyance in her face made Doyoung’s interest die into something akin to apprehension.

“What?” Johnny took a step forward, suddenly standing in front of Doyoung. Something shifted in him, and Doyoung felt himself tensing up. He sounded irritated, “Is there a problem with that?”

Doyoung heard his pulse quicken in his ears as they held stares for what felt like an hour, but then, the girl’s eyes fell.

“No, Johnny”, she appeared really young all of a sudden, like a child being scolded, “None at all.”

Johnny nodded, and whatever tension had been building up, dissipated, as the group did as well, going back to whatever they had been to before. Johnny guided Doyoung to the counter, and asked the barman for two beers. He settled next to him, leaning over, as the two large cans appeared in front of them.

“Ah,”, Doyoung blurted out, drink in hand, ”that was kind of awkward.”

Johnny, who was back to being whatever version of him Doyoung had got to know, smiled. “Don’t mind them. They are just… You know. From here.”

Doyoung smiled at his beer, silently thankful for the reassurance the older was trying to plant into him. His thumbs began to draw circles on the shiny metal of his can, as he held it close to his chest.

“You know, you don’t have to force them to be my friends.”, he said, quietly. Just like the girl a few minutes ago, he also felt himself sounding somewhat childish, “It’s not like I’m going to stay for a long time here, anyway.”

Johnny took a long sip of beer, Doyoung accidentally staring at his Adam’s apple going up and down, before he actually replied.

“They are young. They _have_ to change.”, he dismissed, staring into the crowd, “Besides, you could use some contacts, wouldn’t you? Go to them, I’ll make sure they help.”

“Johnny, it’s not-“

“Sooyoung’s mom is in the police. Jongin’s parents have been the biggest car shop owners in town for a long time, and he knows every vehicle in the town. Sunyoung is this town’s only school’s secretary and Yoonoh-”, Johnny took a breath before continuing, “Yoonoh’s family owns half of the woodland.”

Doyoung’s eyebrows rose slightly, more because of the way Johnny’s voice had changed than because of the information itself. Owning half of the woods sounded quite impressive, but there was something in the way he had said it that made Doyoung feel like there was something more to it, something… somehow resented.

The younger bit his lip, looking at his hands once again. 

“They _are_ good people, Doyoung. I swear.” Johnny insisted, sounding tired all of a sudden, “They just… Don’t know how to react to the new.”

“I just…”, Doyoung licked his lower lip and bit into it once again, “Honestly, I just don’t understand why you’re doing all of this for me, Johnny. You don’t need to do this…” he motioned around, “all of this, for some dude you just met.”

Doyoung looked up, nervously, and he saw Johnny staring intently at him. He felt his eyes finding his, boring into, and the strong urge to look down and never look up again. But also, the even stronger urge to never look away.

“I know.” he finally said, just loud enough for Doyoung to listen, “But I want to.”

At those words, an alarm went off inside his brain. This felt intimate. _Too_ intimate. This conversation was getting way too personal for him to handle and he felt his legs tingling with the need to _run_. He thought he let out an uncompromising laugh, but he wasn’t sure, because, he suddenly realized, his head was starting to feel buzzed, and he felt like he needed to escape.

His grip on the can tightened and a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, but before the any of the two could add anything, a new voice came over.

“Ah, Johnny!”, it said and, for a change, it was a friendly voice, “I see you came tonight, as well!”

Johnny dragged his eyes away from Doyoung, and he couldn’t be more thankful, as the unfamiliar man approached. He had a broad smile, and hair dyed in a tired orange brown shade. He was wearing a dress shirt, and pants that landed exactly in the middle of casual and expensive.

“Mr. Park.” Johnny greeted, a smile not dissimilar to the man’s stretched on his face, “Of course.”

“Please,” he slapped his shoulder lightly, “how many times do I have to tell you to stop making me feel old? It’s Leeteuk. Leeteuk!”

Johnny laughed, and his smile seemed real this time, “Understood, Mr. Leeteuk.”. Johnny’s hand landed on Doyoung once again, but this time he was pulled closer to him, “This is Doyoung. He’s new in town… Comes from Seoul.”

“Seoul!?”, the older man’s eyes doubled in size. Doyoung wondered just exactly how old this man was. His face didn’t have many wrinkles, and his nose had the typical shine of a good nose job, but there was something about him that just screamed fifty-something. “Oh, I miss that city. I’ve been there many times!”

This genuinely surprised Doyoung. It was the first time that anybody in the town mentioned anything about Seoul, or anything related to outskirts of Neukddomyeon at all.

“Doyoung, Mr. Leeteuk is the owner of this bar.”, at this, Doyoung bowed really low.

“This is a really cool place, sir.”, Doyoung complimented, happy to finally meet someone that didn’t seem to hate him on sight. “It really feels like Seoul.”

At that, Leeteuk smirked. “You know, you’re probably one of the two people I’ve heard saying that as a compliment.”

Doyoung was about to ask who would be the other one, but was cut off, “Yeah, the atmosphere is good. But you know what sucks? The music, Mr. Leeteuk.”, Johnny mock complained, exaggerated exasperation transforming his face.

“Ah, Johnny!”, the oldest man hissed, never losing the friendly playfulness of a TV host, “What music is a bar supposed to play, huh?”

Doyoung heard the two begin a bickering fight with a bit of humor, until Johnny ended up telling him to wait for him as he went to the DJ cabin. He simply nodded, ready to be left alone the rest of the night.

He sighed, relieved at the turn of events, as he leaned back and contemplated trying to find a stool for himself. He decided to drown into what was left of his beer and another one to avoid thinking of what had just happened with Johnny, and just try to close his eyes and picture himself in any bar in Seoul, as if he was back in his element.

He found himself wishing so much people in this town were alike the people he was used to working with, once again. In Seoul, where relationships were more fleeting and people were more open to over-sharing with a stranger one night out of the sheer need of _letting go_ , things were easier for a reporter. Doyoung couldn’t remember how many times he had just spent a couple extra hundred wons and got pretty girls (sometimes even boys) talking an entire night about the senator they had been sleeping with between soju shots.

But here, where everyone was happily intertwined, where everyone already knew everything they needed to, where _letting_ go just wasn’t part of them, it was hard for Doyoung to find an opportunity to snake himself in.

The writer was forced out of his mind when a body suddenly walked up to him. It was the pretty girl from before, Sooyoung, with a tall drink in his hand, making herself comfortable against the counter once again. She let her elbows stretch as much as she wanted, chest pressed against her arms. Doyoung looked at her out of the corner of his eye, hoping she wasn’t up to more drama.

“So,”, she then began, casual bitterness in her voice, “Seoul.”

Doyoung smiled politely at her, “Yeah.”

The girl nodded, but Doyoung could tell that the sourness from before still remained, much less strong perhaps, but still there. Now that she was standing, he could tell that she was taller than he expected, maybe only some good ten centimeters shorter than him, and her big, glossed lips were more sensual from up close.

Despite this, Doyoung didn’t really feel anything for her. He had learnt, by experience, to not let himself feel attraction to anybody related to work. Many of his former coworkers had gotten swindled by beautiful faces, forgetting all about their purpose and then gotten fired for doing a poor job. Doyoung had learnt to avoid that, long ago, by the sheer force of not being able to afford losing his. 

“Johnny told us you’re investigating something.”, she spoke again, drink just leaving her lips, “What are you investigating?”

“Well,” Doyoung smiled to himself, nervous, as he tried to make up a believable lie in his mind. It was just fortunate that this girl seemed to be so annoyed by his presence alone that she didn’t even spare a look towards him, “I work for a newspaper. A-and they want to make a review of tiny towns that people can visit for the holidays. And such.”, he ended up spilling, hoping his voice sounded less nervous than he felt, “Tourism, you know?”

Sooyoung’s frown deepened, almost offended, “Neukddomyeon is _not_ a tourist place.”

 _I’m aware,_ Doyoung thought, “Tourism could be good for a place’s economy, you know.”, he said instead, trying to sound pleasing.

“We don’t need anybody,”, she simply replied, “We fend by ourselves.”. Doyoung saw the dark curtain of her hair swish and she was now facing him, “I’ll just tell you this: don’t dare come for Neukddomyeon, “ she sentenced, “because if you do, Neukddomyeon will come for _you_.”

She didn’t say it with any particular anger, but either way, he felt a chill run down his spine. Doyoung’s mind was too buzzed to control the way his own lips parted in shock, and it was equally as buzzed to conjure any type of words of reassurance, of quarrel, or even of defense. He didn’t have the opportunity, either, because suddenly a pair of white hands were pulling the girl away, and he saw Yoonoh whispering something into her ear and eyeing him from time to time.

He wanted to go over, reassure him that he hadn’t been doing or saying anything wrong to his friend, but before he could do anything, they left. And as he was left alone, Sooyoung’s words came back to him.

_‘Don’t dare come for Neukddomyeon because if you do, Neukddomyeon will come for you’._

_‘Neukddomyeon will come for you’._

_Just like they did for the Eye_ , a buzzed part of Doyoung’s mind supplied.

There it was, the alarm again. Except instead of being able to properly panic again, Doyoung’s mind was too buzzed, his ears were too overwhelmed, his breath was too suffocated and there was no Johnny in sight. He needed to get out _now._

So he did.

Stumbling between the crowd, forgetting about I’m sorry’s as he pushed someone’s drink or excuse me’s when he walked in the middle of a circle of friends, he found himself finally wobbling out the door and into the cold night.

He breathed in and out, and in and out a couple times, the smell of the pinecones strong in the air, instantly working to calm himself. It felt familiar, somehow. It reminded him of the night in the clearing. It felt _safe_.

In the middle of nowhere, staring at the woods extending behind the bar by himself, midway to being drunk out of his mind, he felt safe.

Before he knew it, he was laying on the grass, looking into the dark night. There were as many stars as the other night, and Doyoung decided to focus on them, on the feel of grass on his fingertips, on the dew wetting his clothes, on anything and everything to try to calm himself down.

The bar wasn’t in the center of the city, as he had expected. It was far, down south, almost on the outskirts of the town. He remembered wondering if it had been located there to avoid noise complaints from neighbours. He remembered wondering if the bar was open during day time. He remembered being caught off guard by himself when no excitement arouse inside him at the prospect of finally being in a situation he could work on.

He heard some footsteps coming closer, and he knew that not much time had passed just because his jeans weren’t too damp. The dominant part in him, the drunk one, decided to stay on the floor instead of trying to figure out who was coming, waiting for them to come closer.

When he saw Johnny’s sharp jawline coming into sight, he wasn’t half surprised.

“Hi,”, he simply said.

“Why did you leave?”, he asked, somewhat stern.

“I couldn’t breathe.”, there was an innocent honesty in his voice that he couldn’t help, and the back of his mind wondered just how many beers had he drunk, and how much time it had been since he last drunk at all. He remembered two, then while Sooyoung was talking to him maybe he got another one? Did he get a new one when they met Leeteuk?

He wondered at what point he had let himself go.

He knew he had been lifted only when he felt Johnny’s hands accidentally touching his skin, shirt all twisted, as he passed his arms around his waist to take him who knows where. His touch felt weirdly hot and uncomfortable (he already felt his own skin burning up), but not enough to have Doyoung squirming.

Arms hanging down each of Johnny’s shoulders, he couldn’t really see where he was being taken, but he was too busy trying to remember his last actual party. He heard the truck’s door being opened.

It had been Taeyong’s birthday, he suddenly remembered. He was sat on the beat pick up seat, and Johnny’s hands put his seatbelt on. He remembered Taeyong’s apartment, Taeyong’s then girlfriend, his favorite plant vase. He remembered sitting down by himself in the balcony, away from Taeyong’s high school friends, drinking a beer. The taste was different than the one he had drunk today.

He remembered, and he giggled to himself, Taeyong’s disappointed frown and the pout in his face, as he told him he should have tried making more friends. The engine roared, turned on.

It was when they began making their way, when it occurred to Doyoung that he should know where they were headed, since Johnny should have been in the club, having fun. Not taking care of his drunk, panicked self.

“Where are we going, Johnny?”, he asked.

Johnny turned to him, eyebrows slightly raised. “Home, Doyoungie.”, his voice sounded calm, almost happy. It took Doyoung by surprise. He thought that if someone had been forced to go home early from a night out to take care of a near stranger, they’d be pissed off. Johnny wasn’t. “Where else could we be headed?” Doyoung shrugged, and he heard Johnny laugh. “You turn really cute when you get drunk.”, he commented.

Doyoung didn’t understand. “But you could have left me there…”, he said, “I have a jacket. I was going to wait.” He said, suddenly feeling sorry for the older man. “ I didn’t mean to ruin your night…”

“Hey,”, Johnny reassured him, and it almost sounded like a parent talking to a child once again, “It’s okay. I told you I wanted you to have a good time. That’s why we came in the first place.”

Doyoung looked down, his hands playing with the hems of his jacket. Again, he felt somewhat overwhelmed, but this time his mind wasn’t right enough to pay much care for it. Instead, it allowed to let him shyly soak in it. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had taken this much care of him.

“I’m sorry”, he almost mumbled, “You could have stayed with your friends…”

Johnny looked back to the road, his eyebrows slightly twisted but his smile still there, “Friends…” he trailed off. “Yeah, don’t worry about that, Doyoungie. Let’s just get you home. Did you e-?”

“Johnny?”, he suddenly cut him off, making the older rise his eyebrows, but not without a hint of playfulness in them.

“Yeah?”, the older asked.

Doyoung licked his lips and he looked at him one last time before he turned his head to the road.

“Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay NOW IM GONNA LEAVE A GOOD AUTHORS NOTE.  
> Wheeew, this chapter. Ngl, I had a lot of fun writing it, I think it might be my favorite so far... johndo are finally getting close, huh? Doyoung doesn’t seem to know how close is he allowed to feel to Johnny though...  
> also! We met some new characters! What do you guys think about them? And their reaction to doie? 
> 
> Anyway I hope u guys enjoyed this chapter as well! Thank u for being here & reading! Please leave some comments, I’d love to read ur thoughts 👀 see u guys in a couple weeks!


	8. Chapter 8

Doyoung was woken up the next morning by a noise that threatened to crack his eardrums, but was actually the house phone. Climbing out of the enormous bed was a feat on itself, his limbs weighed like his muscles were made of marble, and he felt like his brain was beating like a heart inside his head, not enough space in his skull for it.

He picked up the call to hear his boss’ voice on the other side of the line, sounding quite pleased, talking fast about something Doyoung’s hungover mind couldn’t quite keep up with. A voice in the back of his head, maybe the only functional part of him at the moment, told him he might have probably been talking about the report he had sent the day before, and so Doyoung replied accordingly to the best of his ability. Luckily, two minutes later, the call was over, and Doyoung let his body slide [down] to the floor, groaning.

He shouldn’t have drunk so much.

For the first time, Doyoung welcomed the chilly air that mornings brought into the house, that for once was working to help his head clear up and getting rid of the ache. With that, memories of the night before began coming back to him in broken pieces, and he groaned as he tried putting them together. A girl in a pretty dress, Yoonoh whispering something in her ear, Johnny talking to the owner of the place, Johnny handing him a beer, Johnny’s face upside down as he stared at him laying on the damp grass. He couldn’t remember the actual reason he ran out of the bar, but he remembered the cornered feeling that had made him run.

He let out another groan as he stood up, but this time out of embarrassment, as he remembered how Johnny had had to carry him into the house and to his bedroom, Doyoung clinging onto him and babbling about one thing or the other. He found himself feeling a sudden surge of energy, willing to do anything else other than keeping remembering _that_ , willing his cheeks not to redden up. Soon, he was cooking himself some haejangguk, scrapping pieces of meat from a couple days ago to make it full and tasty.

It hadn’t occurred to him to look at the time so it wasn’t until he was out of the shower, maybe an hour later, that he realized it was around midday. His eyebrows rose in surprise, trying to remember how long had it been since he last woke up so late. A part of him felt irresponsible, but a bigger part reminded himself that last night could count as work as well, since he did need more connections in the town.

Suddenly, Johnny’s words came to his mind, the ones encouraging him to get help from his friends, but he instantly scrapped the idea. It was more than obvious that, just like the rest of the town, they didn’t welcome him either. Besides there was something in the way they had looked at him that just… made Doyoung not want to bother them.

However, there was someone who had been actually welcoming of him, for once. Leeteuk, if he remembered correctly, the owner of the bar. He tried to remember their brief conversation as best as he could, and it seemed to him like the man was actually open to strangers, a rare thing amongst the Neukddomyeon people, and maybe, perhaps, he could be the one connection Doyoung had been waiting for.

He dressed up with plans in his mind, ready to cross the street and ask Johnny where he could find Leeteuk if it was not in his bar (and maybe apologize for his… questionable behavior), but as soon as he walked out and saw no pick up on sight, he knew that that would have to wait. He didn’t know where the man could be at the moment, since he never actually asked him about his routine, nor Johnny had ever given hints of having one.

Of course, he could always knock the door and ask about him, since Johnny had told him about his mother and grandmother living with him, but that would be more awkward a situation than he was willing to deal with. He didn’t know what he’d do if he had receive to from them the same hostility he’d been getting from everyone else, which was most likely what would happen.

In the end, he found himself walking towards the center of the town again, unsure of what to do exactly but willing to improvise. Now that he was more familiar with the place, the walk was even nearly enjoyable. Half of the way was just walking along the stripe of grass between the road and the treeline of the woods, which looked admittedly much less intimidating under the bright sun that had decided to show up that day. Although the town itself wasn’t big, it had been built in a way that it spread through a greater area than it actually needed. It was strikingly different from the city, where everything was minutely calculated to take up only as much space as it needed.

His feet took him towards the town’s hall once again (maybe he could take a closer look at the museum, or ask for an interview with one of the authorities there? He didn’t think they’d straight out refuse it), but when he was only a couple blocks away, he saw a commotion.

Two men, tall, arguing with an older, shorter one. The elder seemed to be completely furious, waving his finger at the tall ones, walking one step closer with every sentence he said, threatening them. Further from them, there was a fourth one, with a dog circling around him, tail wagging as if it was about to be taken to the park. As he walked closer, Doyoung recognized a police uniform on one of the tall ones… And Johnny’s longish hair in the other.

“Mr. Ahn-“, the policeman began, his voice sunny and placating to the one threatening them before being interrupted.

“If they make that damn dog bark the entire night again I’m going out there with my knife!”, he yelled, “Two nights, it’s been two nights since I last slept!”

At that, the other man seemed to spark up, coming up closer to them. “Hey!”, he turned the other man forcefully, “Who the fuck are you to be talking like that about my dog?!”

Before he knew, the two men were pushing at each other, yelling insults and threats, as Johnny and the cop tried to placate them once again. Doyoung decided to keep his distance, watching the fight from afar. It escalated quickly, and when the first punch was thrown, there was a hand to stop it.

Doyoung’s eyes went slightly bigger when he saw it was Johnny’s hand grabbing the dog owner’s by the wrist, and suddenly restricting it behind the man’s back. Without a word, the cop did the same, and both of them pulled both men apart as they kept insulting each other. He was about to walk towards Johnny, when he realized that he could hear quite well the conversation that the cop was having with the elder man, since they had moved (well, more like the man was forced to walk by the cop) quite closer to him.

“I know, I understand you Mr. Ahn,”, the cop smiled. He had nicely tanned skin and high cheekbones that Doyoung couldn’t help but envy. The muscles in his arms that refused to be hidden by the long sleeved shirt he was wearing seemed to barely be making any effort as he held the man by the shoulder. Despite this, his voice was as relaxed and nice as before, “But this is a dog we are talking about, right? How can you expect a doggy to listen to humans?”

The old man grabbed his gray hair in frustration, “Those wolves, it’s always those wolves!”, he almost yelled, accusing, “You _can_ do something about those! Their howls make that stupid dog cry all night!”

The cop smiled apologetically, shaking his head, “You know we can’t…”, he shrugged, but was interrupted by Johnny.

“Yunho!”

The cop, Yunho it seemed, turned towards Johnny, and without a word, began escorting Mr. Ahn towards him. After a couple more minutes (and more dirty looks thrown between the two elderly men), both of them walked back into their respective houses, and before Doyoung could consider whether to interrupt Johnny or not, he heard his name being called, and found him beckoning towards him.

Doyoung went.

After some introductions (“Jung Yunho, the eldest son of the Jung family, remember I mentioned them?”) and a surprisingly friendly handshake from the tanned man, he left, and Doyoung was being walked towards the town’s hall after telling Johnny his plans.

“My mom’s there today, actually!”, he had said, excitedly, “I’ve talked to her about you, she’ll give you an interview for sure.”

As they walked, Doyoung asked about Leeteuk. It turned out that the man also owned a pub of sorts, just a calm place where people could go get some western-style food. It wasn’t too popular amongst the elderly, but the teenagers loved it.

“By the way,”, Doyoung began, embarrassment dampening his voice, “I’m sorry for… uh, last night.”. He felt heat rise to his cheeks. “I-I don’t know what happened, I swear I’m not a bad drinker…”

“Hey”, Johnny lifted a hand, making a dismissive gesture, “Don’t sweat it. I didn’t mind leaving early, anyway.” When Doyoung turned to look at him, he was wearing an easy smile, looking back. “Besides, you’re a really cute drunk. You wouldn’t stop mumbling when I took you to your room.”

“You took me to my room…?”, Doyoung felt the blood draining from his face as Johnny nodded. He felt the strong need to hide his face behind his hands as the realization fell on him, only resorting to ball-up his fists to his sides instead. He did not need more humiliation.

He had assumed he had been functional enough to drag himself to the room, even though he remembered having a hard time climbing the stairs to the third floor where his apartment was after even one beer, back in Seoul. Suddenly, he realized that he had woken up in his pajama pants, as well, another thing he had assumed he’d done on his own. He found himself mortified at the thought of asking Johnny about that as well. He cleared his throat before speaking again, “Well, then, thank you, Johnny _.” For the millionth time since I came here, thank you_ , he thought.

Johnny stopped and turned towards him, the corners of his lips reaching higher than before, sharper, “You know, you don’t need to thank me so much. I like doing this. I like helping you.”

Doyoung found himself incapable of finding a good response to that, as he was fighting the slight discomfort that was washing over him. He willed himself to form what he hoped was a grateful smile, although it was nearly impossible for him to look at the taller. Thankfully, he then noticed the town’s hall door behind him.

A voice in the back of Doyoung’s mind was silently thankful for the distraction, as they walked into the place, and he refused to analyze just why he was thankful, as he followed him in. He felt dwarfed by Johnny’s big back as he walked into the building with secure steps, saying hi to the receptionist (who was, once again, playing a video game), and walked right into a hall.

Doyoung followed, and his eyebrows rose up at the quantity of doors that the hall held. He hadn’t thought the place was much bigger than the reception the first time he had visited it. As Johnny knocked on one of the doors, Doyoung took the chance to look around at the frames hanging against the cream-colored walls. They were pencil portraits, extremely detailed, of several men and women that seemed to be old enough to have lived a hundred years ago. Their stern faces called Doyoung’s attention, they were permanently frowning, as if they, also, didn’t welcome him. There were also some other pictures with more color, although abstract. One of them had a shape that was strikingly similar to a wolf howling at the moon, shape that was somehow familiar to Doyoung, but he couldn’t put a finger on where he had seen it before.

He had been so absorbed with the picture that when his name was called, he jumped in his skin. He turned to find Johnny next to a smiling woman peeking out the office, beckoning him to come in.

“Doyoung, this is my mom.”, at that, the younger bowed, and he felt relief as his polite smile naturally made itself seen in his face. Moments later Johnny was gone, saying he had some more business to attend, and Doyoung was sitting down in a leather chair in front of an impressively big and orderly desk.

Myoryeon definitely looked younger than she probably was, and looked more similar to Johnny than Doyoung had expected. Her hair reached her jawline, making their similarities more pronounced, and it was dyed in a soft brown similar to Johnny’s nearly auburn shade. However, the woman was significantly smaller than him, barely reaching her son’s shoulder when standing.

“Johnny told me you wanted an interview, yes?”, she spoke, and Doyoung instantly added her to his very limited list of people that didn’t despise the sight of him, relief washing over him for a second time. “Why don’t I tell you a bit about Neukddomyeon?”

Doyoung could almost cry. Instead, he nodded enthusiastically, unwilling to startle her with the desperation he was sure he’d reply with. In a second, his hands were digging for his notebook, but as he was taking it out, he heard the woman talking.

“This is the time to listen, Doyoung,” her tone was suddenly firm yet amicable, not unlike a teacher’s, “you’ll have time to write whatever you need later.”

Doyoung swallowed as he felt his eyes go round, surprised, suddenly intimidated, and sat back straight.

“Neukddomyeon…”, she began almost with a sigh, a faraway look in his eyes, “Neukddomyeon has been here for five hundred years. At first, it was just two families looking for a place to live, a place that welcomed them, a safe place to raise their children and be free.

It’s said that the founder, Dogyeong, found this place clear in the heart of the forest,, as if waiting for them. And so he built his house, and Jaeseong, his friend, built his own right next to his. Then, Jaeseong brought more family in, and Dogyeong did as well. And that family brought more family. And the rest is history.”

She paused, satisfied, for a second, resting back on her seat. Doyoung felt her eyes seizing him for a few seconds, until she spoke again “And you know who those two families were, Doyoung?”

Doyoung shook his head, feeling slightly dumb.

“It was the Jungs… And the Suhs.”, she smiled as if she was accepting a compliment. “But that’s not really what makes Neukddomyeon special. That’s a story just like any other, right?”

The younger swallowed, as he nodded, and dared “Then… what is what makes Neukddomyeon special?”

“It’s the wolves.”, she said, and Doyoung felt his face pale once again, struggling to control the size of his eyes. “The wolves were truly the founders of Neukddomyeon, protecting the Suhs and the Jungs, protecting us for as long as we’ve been here.”

He attempted a blank face to avoid showing the confusion he was feeling. Protecting them?

“Ah…”, she continued, settling back into her chair once again, “ you must be thinking this is just crazy talk, right?”, she smiled sweetly once again, her voice devoid of malice, “This is just another gullible town’s people legend. But let me ask you, Doyoung, isn’t it crazy to think that humans are anything but animals?”

Doyoung fell speechless, the question ringing in the air, as her eyes bore into his again. The question felt like the mouth of a cave, deeper, much deeper than it looked on the outside. After a moment, he realized that the woman was expecting an actual reply.

“Yeah”, he said, almost shyly, shoulders cringing.

A couple more silent seconds went by, before the woman spoke again.

“My son likes you a lot...”, and the tension from before (tension he hadn’t even been aware that had built up) evaporated just like that. “Come to my birthday party this Tuesday, yes?”

A brief call to Taeyong , trying to figure out how to write down Myoryeon’s story, and the discovery of a plate in Johnny’s grandma’s collection with a shape similar to the wolf howling in the hall’s picture had Doyoung busy until it was Tuesday, three tasks that had been impossibly harder than they should have.

With Taeyong’s call came a ten minute nagging session about his lack of communication. “I had to call your boss to get this number, Doyoungie! Your boss!”, he had said. Doyoung had winced, putting the phone away from his ear, as he let the older get his anger out. He deserved it, anyway, and he knew his friend had his best intentions in mind.

The most difficult part had been reassuring him that everything was fine. Doyoung wasn’t used to explaining himself, much less to Taeyong who was quite good at reading him. But without Taeyong’s physical presence, Doyoung found himself with the new possibility of lying to him. And he didn’t want to worry his friend any more than he already had. He couldn’t stand feeling like a bother.

So he had told him half truths. That he was fine, that he had someone who was helping him, that information was scarce and that was really the only difficulty of the job. And that had left him Taeyong satisfied enough to let him off the hook with a promise of a call the following week.

Finding the plate with the wolf shape hadn’t been itself a difficult task, what had been difficult had been living with the knowledge that he had seen the shape somewhere else but not being able to remember where, before actually finding the plate itself.

For almost an agonizing day and a half, he had thought that he might had seen it in one of the magazines in the library that was, by the way, still closed. He didn’t know how important it could be, but it killed him to not be able to put another piece of the puzzle together. He had so many different pieces, so apparently incongruous, that he needed something to at least click.

Then, as he dropped on the couch in frustration, his eyes had caught one of the neatly organized shelves, shelves he himself had organized in his first weekend, and he remembered all the art that he had seen printed in them. And after that, it had been a twenty minute search until he found it.

There it was, a bit more detailed than the one in the hall, but surely it was the same. The same pose, the same grey fur, red log, yellow moon.

He didn’t know if it could mean anything, and he didn’t know if it had been anywhere else in the town, but he’d promised himself to keep an attentive eye on any painting he’d come across from now on.

Perhaps Myeoryeon’s story had been the most difficult of the three. Thinking back to her words, it felt like she had given him too little information but at the same time a lot. Or more like, she had said little, yet implied a lot. Except Doyoung wasn’t sure what she had been implying, what he should have understood.

That’s why, when writing the details down, it was hard for him to discern what to write, mostly because it sounded more like the introduction to a legend rather than a factual story. Should he add the part of the wolves at all? In retrospect, he absolutely should, this is what he had come to investigate in the first place. But it just sounded too… Farfetched. Too coded. Maybe wolves stood for something else?

And then, as he was writing down the names of the founding families, Doyoung had a memory flash behind his eyes.

_“Yoonoh’s family owns half of the woodland.”_

And Johnny’s barely contained venom as he said it.

If the Suh’s and the Jung’s both had founded the town, why would Johnny be angry about the Jung’s owning half of the woods? The more he thought of it, the less it made sense. Which only meant one thing: that there was yet another piece of this big puzzle that he was missing _. One of the dozens_ , he thought, tiredly, as he nervously fixed the collar of his button up, ten minutes before eight, the exact time he had been told to come to the Suh residence, across the road.

_And I’m going to find them out._

A figure standing on his porch made him jump in startle as soon as he opened the door. Upon further inspection, he found longish caramel hair and a big smile that could only belong to Johnny.

“I thought arriving with me would make you less nervous.”, he said, eyes twinkling in mirth. Doyoung felt the corners of his lips rising, and he huffed out a breath along with a thank you, and they began walking side to side.

Doyoung felt his chest somewhat warm, it had been quite thoughtful of Johnny to do that on his own, taking into account that he had also been doing that for three weeks now almost every time Doyoung had to meet anybody new. He couldn’t help to think that he should give something back, something that made him feel less inadequate. He couldn’t remember the last time someone was this considerate towards him.

Despite his previous resolution, Doyoung was feeling nervousness build up with each step he took approaching the house. For a short second, he wished Johnny lived further just so he’d have a few more minutes to brace himself, but before he knew it Johnny was opening the door before him.

He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it was definitely not the indifference he was met with. It didn’t feel like a bad thing, however, since the reason for it was that every guest was engrossed in their own conversation, gathered in small groups around the long table set in the middle of the living-room, all over the couches, or simply laying against the walls. There must have been about thirty people, according to Doyoung’s guess, and the only reason why it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as it should have been for a house gathering was because the house itself was quite big.

Doyoung had been there only once or twice, but his stay had only been reduced to lounging on the entrance or using the internet cable in the office room to send e-mails. Because of that, he was never able to appreciate the actual largeness of the place, nor had he been interested on it either.

Just like the house where Doyoung was living, the Suh’s house had low roofs crossed by wooden beams holding them, wooden floors and a chimney that was more decoration than anything else. The sofa looked like a bigger version of his, with a couple of armchairs and stools surrounding it, clearly intended to host many people, and it made him wonder if big reunions like this were normal in this household. Doyoung’s eyebrows shoot up when he recognized the faces of the people lounging there.

Johnny began walking him to them, but Doyoung was quick to catch his sleeve.

“Shouldn’t I, um, congratulate your mother first?” Doyoung asked, almost shyly, hoping that his apprehension to meet Johnny’s friends again would be disguised. Johnny smiled at him, and began taking him to the table, instead.

The second he walked into Myoryeon’s vision, she stood up and crushed him into a tight hug that took Doyoung entirely by surprise. He stood there, stunned for a couple seconds, until Johnny directed him to other people in the table. He shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was to find more familiar faces than not, people he had seen around the town, people Johnny had introduced him to. Even Old Joo was there, sporting a kinder face than he was used to seeing in her.

He met Johnny’s grandma, a sweet old lady of few words that only greeted him with a kind smile and a question ( _“I hear you’re taking good care of my house, isn’t that right, Doyoung_?”).

After the introduction, Myoryeon shooed them away to the couches, where it seemed that the younger people were supposed to hang out. Doyoung’s look landed on the coffee table next to it, finding dishes surrounded by soju bottles and glasses, as his eyes seemed to be set on avoiding the group until it was 

Johnny handed him a tiny glass as he sat in one of the stools, trying to not interrupt whatever conversation Sooyoung and Sunyoung were holding, conversation that was closely monitored by Jongin, who was leaning over them from behind the couch. There was a third girl with them; a much younger one with bright red hair who Doyoung was sure had never met. Johnny sat on the couch as well, making the three of them lift up their head.

Doyoung greeted them quietly with a wave, suddenly shy again, and was kind of shocked when the reaction wasn’t as explicitly negative as last time. Each of them gave him a _hello_ , Jongin´s sounding the least awkward and Sooyoung’s the most. He still appreciated the effort, and smiled back at them, almost easily this time.

From then on, the chatter amongst them began. Which meant that the chatter amongst Johnny and his friends began, while Doyoung simply followed the conversation and reacted accordingly. Johnny had attempted to include him at times, explaining him who was each person in the gossips they were discussing, asking him questions related to whatever they were discussing, but Doyoung had had the slight sensation that being loud would only work against him this time, so he chose to give small amicable replies that wouldn’t take put too much spotlight on him.

At some point, the conversation diluted again, and Doyoung chose to take his third shot of soju. He didn’t feel as buzzed as the other night, perhaps a product of being well rested and eaten this time, and the tiny kimbap rolls that were the closest to him on the table as well. As he chewed what must have been his seventh piece, he looked around and was surprised to find another familiar face on the crowd.

Jeno, the boy from the market, was lying against the wall, arms crossed, eyes down casted, looking particularly pathetic by himself. Doyoung sprung to his feet before he knew it, happy to not be the only one not feeling like a fish out of the water in the room. He felt Johnny’s eyes on him as he walked away, but he couldn’t find himself to care to explain himself, as he was set on calling the teen’s attention.

“Jeno!”, he greeted enthusiastically, and he looked up in surprise. “I didn’t know you were part of the family!”

Jeno smiled at him, inhibited, as he shook his hands in front of him, “Ah, no, I’m not…!”

“Oh,”, Doyoung’s eyebrows rose, and he opened the can of beer he had picked up from the table when he had stood up. “Then…?”

“My grandma is close with Myoryeon”, he quickly explained, and pointed towards the table, “Uh, you know, Old Joo…?”

This caught Doyoung by surprise. “Oh!” he lifted his free hand to his mouth, “I didn’t know that. I assumed she was your boss.”

Jeno smiles at him nervously, and lowers his voice “Have you seen how she treats me? Who would stay with a boss _that_ strict?” This elicited a loud laugh from Doyoung, and Jeno’s smile grew. “Don’t tell her I said that!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”, he assured him, patting his shoulder. “You must love her very much if you stayed helping her, regardless.”

“Yeah”, Jeno’s smile turns tender and his eyes fall to his feet once again for a second, modest, “I guess.”

Doyoung spent some time interrogating Jeno with random questions, since his mind was starting to get too buzzed to think cleverly. He learnt that Jeno was in his last year of high-school, looking forward to start a veterinarian career since the only one in town was getting older, and that he had three cats despite being allergic to them. The boy was in the middle of describing how he took his allergy medicine when Doyoung suddenly found the redhead girl standing next to him.

“Jeno!”, she exclaimed, and her eyes flew to Doyoung’s with a certain agitation that he reminded seeing in the eyes of Johnny’s friends at the club. “What are you doing?”

“Chatting…?”, the boy replied, shoulders lifting slightly, hiding into himself, “Why…?”

“I-Um.”, she began, as if she was uncertain what to reply to that, “I wanted to ask you something about Teacher Soo’s class.”, the girl ended up saying, before grabbing Jeno’s wrist and pulling him with her, “Come with me!”

And like that, Jeno was dragged away. Doyoung lifted an eyebrow, following them with their eyes, when he felt a hand touch his lower back, and whipped his head to the owner, dizziness blurring his gaze for a second at the movement.

“That’s Yeri for you”, Johnny smirked, “Always so…”

“Energetic.”, he provided.

“Demanding.”, the older corrected. “I didn’t know you were friends with Jeno.”, he commented casually, and now it was Doyoung who was supporting himself against the wall, as he took another sip of his beer.

“Ah, I’m not,” Doyoung assured, looking up at him, “We’re more like… Friendly acquaintances. Also known as the other only person in this town who’s willing to talk to me aside from you”, he tried to joke, but he saw a frown forming on his forehead instead.

“Hey”, Johnny clicked his beer with the one he was holding, “Don’t say that. I told you that people will start coming around you in no time.”

If Johnny had said that hour ago, he would have doubted. But strangely, he had found that he was actually having fun in this party. People hadn’t been the most talkative or cheerful towards him, but they weren’t scowling at him either, which was a change. They were being polite; as pitiful as it sounded, Doyoung felt like it had been a great advance.

He smiled at Johnny, and was able to be sincere when he told him, “Yeah, you might be right.”

Johnny beamed at him, a big toothy smile, and his hand ruffled his hair, slowly sliding down the back of his neck, “Let’s go back to the sofa.”

Doyoung took another sip of his beer and shook his head no, making Johnny drop his hand. “Actually, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.”, he said, bolder than he intended, but he found that couldn’t care much at the moment, “Mind if I go outside for a bit?”

Johnny looked torn for a second, eyes going back and forth between Doyoung and his friends, and after a couple seconds, he nodded, “Sure”, he pointed at the front door, “Just call me if something happens, alright?”

Doyoung nodded, offering Johnny a small smile and seconds later, he was standing under the stars once again.

Johnny’s porch had some stairs, but they were a small enough that if someone was to come out, he’d be a disturbance. He didn’t want to mess up whatever advance he had done that night, so he chose to sit on the sidewalk instead, and drink the rest of his beer while enjoying the view. The air was fresh with just a hint of cold, a much welcomed feel after being inside with so many people at once. There was a shiver that ran up and down his spine every few minutes, but the warmth that drink injected in his stomach with every sip added to the long sleeve plaid he had on were enough to protect him for a while.

He thought back to the conversation he had had with Jeno, and felt some sort of fondness blooming in his chest. He remembered being his age and wishing so hard to have a younger sibling, one like him. He remembered thinking all the things he’d do right, things that had been done wrong to him by his own older brother.

That train of thought reminded him of another familiar face he had seen at the table: Jung Yunho. He recalled Johnny mentioning him being Yoonoh’s older brother, but he was sure he hadn’t seen him anywhere in the party, and he couldn’t help to think how strange that was. Why wouldn’t he bring his younger brother along, when the guy himself was close to the honoree’s only son?

He had assumed there was certain rivalry amongst the families, according to what little information he had gathered. But then again, how come he was part of Johnny’s group of friends? He could understand Yunho being invited to the party out of politeness (even though the man had looked more than comfortable amongst the other guests), but why would Johnny keep around someone he didn’t want?

A banging sound made him drop the beer he had been holding, his thoughts dissipating like smoke, and he turned in time to see the door slamming closed and someone walking out. It was the young girl, Yeri.

She was clutching her stomach, grunting, and pacing away along the sidewalk, and Doyoung couldn’t help to sprint up in worry. Her face was half covered with the long red locks, an intense grimace contorting her face in pain.

“Hey!”, Doyoung blurted out, arms extended towards her with his palms up, trying to appear harmless, “Yeri- Yeri, wasn’t it? Are you okay?”

The girl peeked at him from between her hair, and somehow the grimace in her lips widened, turning herself away from him. Her hands whitened as she put more strength into her grip, and she began pacing away faster. Doyoung felt his pulse quickening, he couldn’t let a sick young girl walk home by herself— he couldn’t—

Without thinking, he put a hand on her shoulder and made her turn around.

“Get _away_ from me!”

Doyoung gasped and his eyes went big.

The girl, pupils blown wide, eyebrows twisted, teeth showing, stared at him in anger. Her body was trembling, her hair fell in every direction, like she had been pulling at it, and her voice- Her voice made the air in Doyoung’s lungs leave. She talked like she was growling. She _was_ growling.

“Doyoung!”

He felt someone pulling at him, but he couldn’t stop staring at the young girl. He was spun, forcefully, by Johnny, who held him by the shoulders. It took him a couple of seconds to focus enough to realize he was staring into his eyes and talking to him.

“Let’s just get you home— “

“We-we can’t, Yeri is— “, Doyoung tried to turn around, but the older’s grip was stronger. “She’s a teen— “

“She’s fine, she just feels a bit sick. She…“, Doyoung caught Johnny’s eyes looking somewhere behind him for a second, and then back at him. He recognized something else in them: worry, “She just has a stomachache.”

Johnny stared into his eyes once again, and this time, it worked to catch Doyoung’s gaze into his. He held it for a few seconds, and he slowly began feeling the fight leaving him, as he found his own reflection in them. For the first time he wondered if alcohol hadn’t made him overreact once again.

“But she’s… I mean…” he felt his thoughts adrift, “Isn’t it dangerous?” Johnny frowned at this, and he continued, explaining his point, “She’s a girl, and it’s late, and she’s… alone.”

“Doyoung…” he saw a shift in Johnny’s eyes, and his grip on him relaxed, “She’s from here. She’s safe.”, Johnny’s hands kneaded his shoulders, begging them to relax under them, “Trust me.”

Doyoung felt the air that his lungs had been accumulating leaving once again, and Johnny finally released him. Peeking behind him, he saw the street empty, as if the girl had been merely a figment of his imagination. When he turned back, Johnny was straightening up, two beers that he had picked from the ground in his hands.

“I actually came to ask if you wanted to go back to yours,”, he began, shaking the cans a little, with a small smile, “Party’s about to end, and I’m also kind of sick of people.”

Doyoung’s eyes drifted between Johnny’s face and the beers a couple times, adrenaline still running through his veins, not letting his heart rate go completely back to normal. After some seconds, he finally nodded, “Sure.”, his voice low, still slightly breathless, “Sure, let’s go.”

He felt an arm warming up the expanse of his shoulders, and Johnny giving him his can of beer. And like that, he was walked back into his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW   
> first of all im SO sorry for the delay to get this chapter out..... i hope the lenght makes up for it T_T  
> you guys have no idea how hard it was to get this chapter out wheeeew... (it didn't help that i might or might have not gotten into teen wolf as well... yes, pulling up to the tw fandom almost 10 years late, whats up)  
> many new characters and much more information, huh? i feel like every new chapter more and more people appear LMAO (i hope u guys are liking them!!!) and so many things happened in this chapter too. we are finally actually hearing from wolves now... and we are seeing a shift in the people as well owo
> 
> next chapter is the one im waiting to write the most too!! so expect it, the night isn't over yet 0w0
> 
> see u guys in two weeks and thank u sooo much for the comments and for waiting for me!! <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (remember when I told you guys not everything was pink in here? Ok.)
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: dubcon

Doyoung felt himself drop down the leather sofa, still shaken about what he had seen. He had the images of the young girl’s distorted features behind his eyes, the growl still ringing in his ears, but his mind couldn’t make sense of neither memory. He couldn’t figure out whether it was because of the alcohol or because of the shock.

He didn’t notice the older sitting down next to him until he heard the click of a can being opened to his left, and he turned to see his lips twist into a small smile, as he offered him a beer. Johnny had taken off his jacket, underneath just a short sleeved shirt that worked to remind himself of his own gelidity. He felt a shiver run down his spine, the hairs on his arms standing on their roots, and he remembered,

“Oh, I left the stove turned off.”

Johnny took a sip of his beer and left it on the table, as he stood up, “Right”, as if Doyoung had given him an order. The younger twisted his body as he followed his steps around the sofa, next to the stairs, behind the old table, until he was crouching next to the stove. He was precise with his movements, telling of how much he knew the house, and he couldn’t help to wonder just how much time he had spent in the house to be  _ that _ savvy. He tried to focus back, wanting to see how he turned it on (as he knew how much time it usually took) but before he knew Johnny was walking back to his place next to him.

“That was fast…”, he mused, more to himself than to him, but he seemed pick it up anyway, as he sat back down and took his beer. Doyoung felt his eyes itching slightly with tiredness, wandering to the hand grabbing the can. He had paid attention to Johnny’s hands before, big, with a roughness in the skin telling of hard handy work, paired with long fingers that Doyoung could easily imagine holding most anything without a tremor.

His eyes fixed on the weird way he held his can as well, almost as if he was grabbing them with his nails, instead of his fingers. Or with claws. 

( _ digging _ , his mind provided, instead of grabbing).

“I’ve spent a lot of time here,” he casually mentioned turning to him. Doyoung looked up and away from the hands to his face, and he could see his features completely relaxed, the hint of a smile in his lips like always, “I helped my grandma a lot when she lived here. I know most everything about this house.”

Doyoung sat back, feeling something similar to a pout forming in his lips, “Would have been useful to know how to turn that thing on in less than twenty minutes three weeks ago…”, he looked down at his own hands grabbing his can close to him, playing once again with the condensation in it. His fingers felt slightly numb, and as he watched them slide on the cold metal, he couldn’t help to compare them to Johnny’s. He had always had thin hands, fingers long but powerless. He remembered Taeyong joking once or twice about him applying to be a hand model, unintentionally feeding that hidden insecurity.

“I did tell you to call me for anything you needed.”, he said after a laugh. “I would have done it for you.”, Doyoung felt himself pursuing his lips as he stayed silent. He preferred Johnny to think he hadn’t called him out of pride rather than out of shyness. At the time, he couldn’t bare the thought of asking for more help from someone who was already doing so much for him. Johnny seemed to sense that silence was going to be his only reply, and he changed the topic, “How did you like the party?”

There was a small smile in his lips, eyes still fixed in his own drink, as he answered “I… actually had fun.”, he replied sincerely, “They were nice.”

It felt so strange to say that sentence about anyone in Neukddomyeon and actually mean it. It almost felt like a lie, but when his mind went back to the party, he realized it was not. This was as much kindness that the town’s people could handle for a foreigner, or so it seemed, and Doyoung wasn’t going to take it for granted.

“I told you, they just needed to warm up to you”, he used the same reassuring voice he had once, when he had said those exact same words, “They’re on their way to that.”

“I guess…”, Doyoung shrugged, “It’s been a while I’ve been to a birthday party. I mean-“, he quickly corrected himself, “To a family birthday party.”

Johnny seemed genuinely surprised at that, “Oh?” Doyoung felt the cushions sink, as Johnny inched closer. “Does your family not celebrate birthdays?”

Doyoung pulled the beer to his lips again, talking a long gulp before answering, “It’s…um— complicated.”

Johnny just stared at him, as if encouraging him to keep talking. Doyoung removed in his place, uncrossing his legs yet somehow feeling himself shrink in his skin.

“It’s really…”, he let the words linger, hoping that it would be enough for the other to drop it, but his eyes stayed fixed on him, expectant. Doyoung let out a forced laugh, falling back on the couch, “Ah, I’m really too drunk to be talking about this…”

“Why?”, Johnny asked, blunt.

“It’s not a happy story.”, Doyoung replied just as bluntly.

He felt the couch dipping closer to him, and suddenly, Johnny was right next to him. A hand landed on his thigh, pressing, making him turn to him, and there he was, again, except this time he was the closest he’d ever been to him.

“You know you can trust me, right?”, Johnny almost begged, eyes looking sincere, reassuring, right into his.”You can trust me.”

In a moment of clarity between the fog that was clouding his brain, he realized why Johnny’s eyes suffocated him. They were too full of emotion, too full of a passion he had long forgotten how to show. It was like they were like fishtanks, showing what’s inside but holding it back.

Doyoung, yet again, couldn’t handle it, so let his eyes fall. He wondered fleetingly just how much time he had spent looking at the ground since he came to Neukddomyeon.

Johnny’s thumb caressing up and down the mushy flesh of his leg was enough to pull him out of his thoughts, and he felt a word purge getting ready to pour out.

“My dad left us when we were young— we as in, my brother and me.”, he began, sighing to himself. It was hard to work out how to word his thoughts, talking about this is something he had avoided like the plague throughout the years. He preferred to leave the memories of childhood and teenage years caged in a small box, thrown into the back of his mind where it would allow him to function like a normal human being, like they had been for as long as he had managed. “He fought a lot with my mother. She… I honestly don’t blame him.”, Doyoung peeked up to find Johnny staring at him like it was the most interesting thing he had heard in his life, and he felt a nervous laugh bubble from his chest, “Ah, I honestly don’t think she was all too well in the head, either.”

Doyoung’s fingers began pickling at the tab, his eyes back to the floor, and Johnny’s hand moving up and down his thigh. He supposed it was meant to be comforting, but his level of focus was so low at the moment that his body could only reason the touch as foreign, so it decided to dismiss it completely. There was also a weird sensation of rawness spreading in his chest as he spoke, knowing he was approaching to deeper parts of him that he wasn’t sure he wanted to resurface, that called more for his attention at the moment.

“And when dad left, she kind of… lost it, I guess.”, he continued, “She didn’t have a favorite, I think, at least not before that, but she began having… a less favored one instead. Me.” Doyoung tried to force on the smile his lips were so trained to make, but it was like the corners of his mouth refused to move, “Gongmyung didn’t have it easy either, but I guess I’ve always been the one who looked more like dad. And since she saw him every time she saw me, I suppose I can understand why she couldn’t really stand me.”

He felt his can being taken away from his hands, and suddenly, another other big hand was covering his own. The touch was hot, almost burning, and something in Doyoung told him to pull away, but the hand resisted it so he just let it hold him.

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less,”, Johnny said, and Doyoung found himself nodding. Like that, he could appreciate the difference between their hands better. He noticed the warmth of Johnny’s tan skin against the striking pale of his own, and that was just another difference between them. Johnny felt always so raw, so intense it was almost suffocating, and Doyoung felt himself so plastic and cold next to him right then, that he felt almost afraid he’d get melt.

“A-anyway, I tried to stay out of her way, as much as I could. I tried to do well at school, be quiet… Ah, you know, all that. I tried to trouble her as less as possible. But—“. Doyoung stopped for a second, because air was being terribly complicated to breathe in, “Well, there was always something to yell at me or smack me for-”

“And your brother?”, Johnny suddenly asked, “He let her do that?”

Doyoung made a face, looking away. “I know… Gongmyung would have defended me, if he had been there. But he kind of found a girlfriend at eighteen, and just left the country with her.”

“And you?”, Johnny asked again, as his thumbs kept the soft touches on him. It made him feel Doyoung as if he needed to keep telling him more, almost as if he owed him the comfort.

“And I did the same. Leaving, I mean.”, he sighed, “As soon as I was eighteen, I found the first job that would take me and began college. And then I found a job I actually wanted, and dropped out.”

Doyoung finally dared to turn his face back, his eyes stinging more than before, more than ever, as he looked at Johnny, who was even closer than before, and closer than ever.

“So yeah,”, he looked back down, because those intense eyes once again were boring into him, “No birthdays… No cakes, no, um, presents… “, he felt his words choking in his throat, burning, “No, um-“

Before he knew it, he was being pulled into Johnny’s chest, and he found himself sobbing into his neck. He was a dam, he felt his chest being tore open and all of his emotions, all of his sadness began pouring out after being concealed and controlled for a long time. His body spasmed with each sob, shoulders going up and down violently, and Johnny just crushed him closer and closer, like he wanted to absorb him.

“I-I’m sorr-“, he tried, between sobs, “I’m sorry-“

“Shh,”, Johnny said, as he buried his fingers more and more into his hair, “Don’t. I’m here.”, he reassured, pressing him impossibly closer, so much that, yer again, Doyoung felt like he couldn’t breathe. But the feeling wasn’t unwelcome. “I’m here for you. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Doyoung felt himself relaxing between his grip, burying his nose against the skin of his neck, the dip in his collarbone. His skin was surprisingly smooth, and in the back of his mind, Doyoung felt sorry for tainting it with his hot tears.

After a while, his eyes, dried out of tears, fell closed and his limbs suddenly weighted tons. Johnny’s fingers were running up and down from the crown of his head to the low of his back, and he realized he was sitting almost entirely on his lap. Before he could react to that, he felt Johnny’s breath into his ear, mumbling.

“You know,”, he began, almost secretly, slow and intimate, “There’s family here, Doyoung. There’s birthday parties, and there’s celebrations, and friends, and laughs and all of that.”, Doyoung felt himself tensing up, but Johnny’s grip tightened again, one hand landing on his cheek, and caressing his cheekbone. “And you need it, Doie. You need all of that. And Neukkdomyeon can give it to you.”

Johnny’s grip loosened up, and he felt his face being pulled back. Johnny was holding him carefully, like he would hold an animal that would run away, and his eyes were the most serious Doyoung had seen, as he looked into his.

“I will give it to you.”

His lungs fell emptied, and his heart began beating loud in his ears.

And then, lips covered his own.

Johnny pulled him properly on his lap, as he pressed himself against him, and Doyoung felt shock paralyzing him. Johnny’s lips were insistent, trying to get a reaction from him, and one of his hands was back on his jaw, bringing him closer.

Doyoung finally found himself responding the kiss slowly, after the older’s teeth dig on his lower lip, making him gasp in surprise. As he began kissing back, he felt the other calming down, falling into a slower pace, as if favoring him. 

Johnny took his arms, laying limp before as he wasn’t sure what to do with them, and placed them over his shoulders, bringing his hips closer to his own. Big hands began going up and down his back, easing him.

Doyoung felt overwhelmed, head dizzy and thoughts fogged. He distantly registered lustful noises, and some part of his mind told him they were his own, those moans were being dragged out of his throat without his consent. He laid there, Johnny gripping him all over and his touch felt like fire, and he could only lightly grab his hair just to hold onto something. The long locks felt soft against his fingers, tangling them, and as he heard his pants louder and louder, he only hoped Johnny was enjoying it.

Doyoung opened his eyes, dazed, as Johnny lifted his shirt and began mouthing at the exposed skin, and he could only stare at the roof. In a lucid second, he wondered to himself exactly what the hell he was doing with another man, especially with Johnny, and where exactly this was going, but the thoughts soon dissipated as he felt Johnny pulling his shirt over his head, and his eyes, those dark eyes, were eclipsing his vision once again.

“God,”, he said, chest heaving, pupils full blown, “I could eat you right now.”

Doyoung couldn’t find it in him to react to those words, instead staring back with hooded eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized his eyes still itched with drunkness. Suddenly, he was being lifted, crawled between Johnny’s arms once again, and his ankles crossed behind that strong back without his permission. He pressed his face down his shoulder once again, hiding in the crook between his neck and his collarbone, as his fingers kept massaging the older’s scalp.

Soon, he heard a door being opened, and his body was laid again, this time on a softer surface; he realized it was his bed.

He saw Johnny take off his shirt and it almost felt like he was in a dream, everything happening slower and faster at the same time. He was soon on top of him, and a part of Doyoung, which was still wary, was shut down by a bigger, urgent part of him screaming at him that yes, this was right, this is exactly what he needed.

One of those big hands went back to petting his face, down his cheekbones, softly, a stark difference from the hand that was fighting to open his zipper, as he whispered sweet nothings into his ear that Doyoung couldn’t even distinguish. Doyoung found his own hands helping him, and setting the zipper free, and he let out another big moan at the feel of Johnny’s hands finally, finally pressing down his clothed crotch for him.

He was on fire, everywhere Johnny touched him was fire and he couldn’t keep up. His mind was fuzzed once again, as he opened his eyes to see Johnny looking at him again, lips parted and letting out ragged breathes, drinking down every single one of his reactions. He felt so wanted. He felt so cared for.

And so, he closed his eyes, deciding that Johnny could do whatever he wanted with him.

He finally let go.

It took a lot of time for Doyoung to wake up, but when he finally did, it was because of his body screaming at him for some water. There was a pastiness in his tongue that crawled back all the way down to his throat, telling of yet another night of drinking, coupled with a headache he felt all too familiar by now. A voice in the back of his mind scolded him, telling him to make sure it wasn’t going to be familiar anymore.

Sitting up was even a greater effort, somehow, because the soreness that all of his muscles were feeling decided to make itself known. It was a pain that reminded him of high-school, of long, long hours spent in his school’s stadium as he struggled to stay in the track team, of physical effort. A pain that felt bad, yet rewarding, somehow.

He sat up. And then, another realization hit.

He was naked.

He was naked?

His fingers began closing and opening into fists, as he tried to remember what had happened the night before. Why would he go to sleep naked? He never did that. Why was his body sore? He hadn’t exercised in a long time now. But there was a reason, and he knew it. He knew what that meant, what  _ must _ have happened.

Except… the last person he remembered interacting with was Johnny.

He was naked.

His pulse began picking up and he heard movement behind him, on the other side of the bed. There was a deep groan, and the bed began dipping the way it does when someone was stirring awake in it. That was enough for Doyoung to ignore all the pain and bolt out of the room, down the stairs, and had he had some clothes on, out of the door.

He saw his hands shake, rigid, as he found some ratty pants on the laundry pile, struggled to put them on, and ran to the kitchen.

He grabbed a glass and began filling it up with tap water, feeling much like a trapped animal, as he glupped glass after glass. It was in vain, his hands refused to stop shaking, his mind refused to clear up, his heart refused to stop drumming. After his third glass, he finally let it down softly into the sink. The less sound he made, the more he could pretend he was still dreaming instead of facing whatever took place the night before.

Resting his body weight on his hands against the kitchen counter, he forced his lungs to take a couple of deep breaths, before he allowed himself to try to figure this out again.

It couldn’t have happened, could it? Why would he sleep with Johnny? Why would he sleep with  _ another man _ ?

He remembered the bitter taste of beer, and his own tears hot down his face, making the skin of his cheeks hurt. He also remembered a different kind of heat coming from rough hands, setting his own skin on fire. And lips. And words. And embraces. And the roof of his living-room.

Doyoung bit his lower lip as one of his hands went to curl into his hair, anxious. His eyes closed, as he took a deep breath again, trying to get more conscious about the pain he was feeling, the different types of pain. And then he found it, a distinctive type of pain he had never felt before, pain he could only relate to one thing.

Doyoung dig his teeth harder, holding back tears of humiliation.

Suddenly, he heard the distinctive noise of the stair creaking as someone went down them, and his body tensed up. He refused to look, delaying the acknowledgement as much as he could, but the next thing he felt were arms, those arms, Johnny’s arms, snaking around his waist, fitting himself against him, and the feel of his shirt against his bare back. That felt like a cold water bucket to his head, bringing him to reality.

“Hey,” he mumbled, voice rough from just waking up, as he dug his nose against the younger’s neck. Doyoung had a flash of himself doing something similar to Johnny the night before, “How you feelin’?”

Doyoung tensed even more, the caged animal feeling from before intensifying, as he remained silent for a moment, not knowing what to do. Then, it was clear. He took a deep breath took the older’s hands with his own, setting himself free from his grip, turning around to see him.

“Johnny…”, he started, but then his words were lost.

Instead of leaving his personal space, Johnny leaned forward, trapping Doyoung between the space between his arms and the counter, and looked at him with a slight frown, “What’s wrong?”

There it was again, the storm of intense emotions in his eyes looking into him, as if he was digging around his mind, trying to find something Doyoung couldn’t figure out.

“Johnny, listen,” he gulped, as he willed himself to look at him in the eyes, “last night-“

“I was thinking,” he interrupted him, leaning forward, his cheek now resting against the younger’s, voice dropping to a whisper. One of his hands found its way to his back, splayed in the middle of it, fingers feeling every single one of his muscles. Doyoung thought that there was no way he couldn’t feel how tense he was, “I could make us some egg sandwiches for breakfast. You like them right?”

Doyoung was speechless for a couple seconds, frozen in his place as the hand roamed up and down.

“Y-yeah…”, he began, unsure, “But Johnny…”

“After that, we should shower.”, he continued, his hand reaching lower and lower which each ministration, “I was going to last night, but you were out  _ cold. _ ”, he laughed, “You’re not in much pain, right? I was as careful as I could. I didn’t want it to hurt.”

Doyoung frowned, unsure what to reply. Why wasn’t Johnny listening to him? He felt himself standing straighter, making the older stand straighter, and he made the distance between greater by pushing him back from the shoulders.

“Johnny.”, he tried to sound firm, but it came out almost like a beg, “Listen to me. Last night…” he began, only to realize his thoughts were still too scrambled to express himself, “Last night it was a… a mistake. I don’t- I mean, I’m not into-”

Johnny let out a laugh.

“Come on, Doyoung.”, his voice was still low, now filled with mock, “Don’t play.”

“Huh?”

“A mistake?” he sounded incredulous, all of a sudden, “That’s impossible. You don’t think last night was a mistake.”

One of Johnny’s hands snaked back around his waist, and the other took place on his cheek, caressing it, and Doyoung felt his eyes boring holes into him. When he looked back, he found something akin to adoration pouring from them. Doyoung felt himself growing overwhelmed once again.

“You should have seen yourself, how you reacted to me.”, he said, and Doyoung felt his embarrassment blooming red on his cheeks, down to his neck. “It definitely wasn’t a mistake.”

“You don’t get it,”, Doyoung finally said, and he tried to push him away again, only to find resistence.

“Look,”, suddenly, the joy from the older’s voice was gone again, replaced by a frustration that startled Doyoung, “You’re thinking this too much. You enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed you enjoying me. What is there not to get?”

Doyoung looked away, as shame burned red through his skin, and he felt his arms hugging himself. For a second, he thought that maybe Johnny was right. Maybe he was overreacting once again.

“I’ve never… I have never done this with another man.”, he explained, almost like a confession, “I’d never even thought of doing it with another man.”

Johnny blinked at him, eyebrows furrowing. “And how’s that a problem?”

Doyoung fell silent, and tried to look away, but Johnny’s hand made him look back into his eyes. He felt so young all of a sudden, so childish. His shame intensified, and with that, he was sure, the pink on his cheeks.

“Hey.” he began, reassuring again, “It’s okay. You’re not used to this, and it’s fine. How about I take it a bit slower, huh? So you get used to it. I think I… After last night…”, Johnny swallowed, but he sounded almost excited to say his next words, “I really like you, Doyoung.”

Doyoung took a couple breathes in, realizing his heart had calmed down significantly, and his muscles had begun relaxing. He felt his thoughts trying to organize themselves, to consider what he was saying, but he found that Johnny’s heavy presence so close to him, touching his face so lovely was making it significantly harder. He couldn’t be sure, but what Johnny had said sounded right. Either way, he had around a month and a half left in Neukkdomyeon.

And being in Johnny’s arms like this didn’t feel completely  _ wrong _ Vaguely, he thought that maybe if he had been with a woman, he might have been just as uncomfortable. He couldn’t remember when was the last time someone had been this affectionately towards him. . He supposed he just wasn’t used to it, to strong arms surrounding him, to rough hands touching him, to the intensity. To Johnny.

Doyoung swallowed, and broke the silence, “What happens if I say yes?”

“Whatever you want it to happen.”, Johnny simply replied.

There was another pregnant silence, before Doyoung broke it again.

“Can I have some time to think about it?”, asking a question like that made the childish sensation from before drown him again. Johnny looked at him for a couple seconds, considering him, before clashing his lips to Doyoung’s, and Doyoung felt his body knowing what to do before he even knew it himself. 

He found himself kissing back with shyness, biting, licking, digging his hands in Johnny’s long locks carefully, as if he was handling a wild animal. Johnny pressed him closer, and Doyoung found himself not wanting to pull back. Johnny hummed into the kiss and smiled, and Doyoung didn’t know what to make of that. 

After some seconds and another hum, Johnny parted away, leaving Doyoung feeling slightly dazed.

“Sure.”, he finally replied, a smirk playing on his lips that, Doyoung couldn’t help to notice, were reddened because of the kiss, “You can take as much time as you want.”

And like that, he left.

Doyoung felt his fingers grabbing from the counter, centering himself, trying to digest what had just happened. After a couple minutes, he just sighed, and left the kitchen.

Johnny was right, he did need a shower. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Point one: I’m sorry I got delayed a few days, I don’t think I’ve ever rewritten a chapter so much wheew  
> Point two: I’m also not 100% convinced with the editing so perhaps I’ll go back to this chapter a few days from now 🤔🤔 I just didn’t want to leave u guys hanging hehe
> 
> Now that that’s out of the way... well, I guess we’re starting to see some true colors, huh? Or not? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
> 
> Also! This is some chapters overdue but this officially is my longest story so far!! I’m so happy, I honestly thought I’d never be able to focus enough to write anything longer than 15k :D thank u guys for sticking with me, your comments and support really help me to keep going 💕💕💕 And thank u to both of my betas, lore (@loretoo in ao3) and vero (@verociraptorr in tw)!! You guys are the best, thank u for dealing with all of my questions and helping me thru this !!
> 
> Last note: please remember that this whole story is told from DOYOUNG’S perspective, ok? 
> 
> Anyway, see u guys in a couple weeks? OwO stay healthy and inside as much as u can!!


	10. Chapter 10

“When I came back home, she’d already packed up,” Doyoung nodded absent-mindedly, his eyes fixed on the cable curled around his finger, “We kind of had a talk, but her mind was already made up, you know? But we promised to keep in contact.”, the voice on the other side of the landline sounded fairly neutral, despite his words.

Doyoung hummed in acknowledgement, eyes still fixed on the way his finger paled and turned purple as he pulled the cord and let go. There was an impassible silence between both sides, and just as Doyoung realized he should be giving some words of encouragement- or any type of response, really, the other side spoke again.

“Hey,”, Taeyong said, voice coming back to life with worry, “what’s wrong, Doyoungie?”

Doyoung frowned, and he felt himself sitting straighter at the question. “Hmm?”

“You know what I mean.”, his friend said, knowingly, but not less worried, “I know you. You always have something to say.”

Doyoung did hear the implicit question in the statement, but he was having a hard time convincing himself to give him a straight answer. Perhaps it was out of embarrassment. Perhaps it was out of fear. Perhaps it was because not even himself could quite figure out yet much of what had happened that other night.

All he knew is that he felt this sort of... apprehension towards the whole situation. When he remembered it, it hadn’t felt bad. He hadn’t felt _bad_ . He’d even go as far as saying that he felt comforted, even cared for, as the older man cradled him in his arms and whispered into his ear. But there was a bigger part of him telling him that something was wrong, something was different now. Something had _changed_.

Doyoung had the slight suspicion that the sole possibility of going outside and coming upon Johnny (a very real possibility, in fact, given that the man lived less than fifty metres away from him), was what had caged him inside the house for almost two days now. But, it wasn’t _fear_ , he was _sure_ of that.

He preferred to call it… anxiety.

“Doyoung?”, Taeyong tried again, “You’re worrying me”.

The younger cleared his throat before replying.

“I think I’m gay.”

There was a heartbeat or two before he heard a clear laugh from the other side of the line.

“What?”, his friend laughed, “No, you’re not. I mean, you’d have figured it out earlier, Doyoungie, after so many one-night stands back in college, remember? Not your proudest moments, true, but-“

“Taeyong,”, he cut him, “I slept with a man. I slept with my neighbor, Johnny.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re gay, Doyoungie.”, there was affection soaking Taeyong’s voice as he spoke, affection that Doyoung felt trying to seep into him in the form of comfort, “It just means you like men as well. Like me.”

There was another silence while Doyoung processed the words.

Somehow, he didn’t feel as comforted as he should have. But it wasn’t exactly because of Taeyong’s words; if anything, he appreciated the bright understanding he carried. 

It was more like... he felt like he wasn’t hitting the target quite enough. 

He didn’t understand why Taeyong’s words weren’t working to comfort him, even though they should. He thought he was worried about liking men. He thought he was worried about having lived nearly twenty seven years of his life without really knowing himself, or secretly, deeply, maybe being a homophobe. But even now, after being reassured so easily by his friend, he found that he didn’t much care about it, that he was still as restless as before.

“I mean,” Taeyong continued, misinterpreting his quietness, “it wouldn’t be your first time with a man, either. Remember college when…“

“Yeah, I do.”, Doyoung cut him again, as he felt heat creeping up his neck and reaching his ears. This time it _was_ because of embarrassment. “And I remember not really enjoying it.”

“I mean, maybe you’re a catcher, not a pitcher.”, he suggested, but this time there was laughter hidden in his tone, “Did you pitch, Doyoungie?”

Doyoung groaned internally, before replying “I caught”. More laughter erupted from the receiver, with just enough knowing affection to make him groan out-loud now, “Anyway-“

“No, you’re not getting out of this so easily. You’ll tell me everything!”, Taeyong sounded fake distraught, ”I’m your best friend, you need to talk to me more!”

The next half hour was spent telling Taeyong as much detail as he was willing to let out, and then some. How Johnny looks, what he was wearing, what they did. Or, well, since Doyoung was still flakey about details of what they had actually done (he just remembered Johnny’s hands, his lips, his touches and then his bed) he told him as much. Taeyong, in a extremely Taeyong fashion, whined about it.

However, there was something that held him back from telling him _what_ lead them to his sofa. The beers. The party. Yeri.

Taeyong ended up allowing him to drop the conversation under Doyoung’s begrudging promise of “more updates as it develops”, in his words. Cutting the call, Doyoung felt a slight smile grow on his face, and he was surprised to realize that, indeed, he actually felt more at ease. 

Taeyong always made him feel lighter, the way he imagined he should have felt as a teen. He often made life seem simpler than it was, and, at the same time small problems more dramatic than they should be. Sometimes, he wondered if that was the reason why he had actually put effort in not letting their friendship drift apart after college. Sometimes, he wondered if it hadn’t actually been Taeyong the one not letting him.

In the end, talking it off had been positive. It had helped him process it, somehow. Making it feel more tangible, like it had actually been real. Still, the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach prevailed.

Before he could give that thought more attention, there was a rapping at the door.

He should have been more surprised than he actually was when, on the other side, he found Johnny. The older was wearing the same jacket as the other day, too light for the chilly night, and he had something suspiciously similar to a Tupperware wrapped in a handkerchief. He lifted said package to his face and smiled.

“Did you know that Grandma Suh makes the best homemade tteokboki?”

Doyoung blinked twice before moving aside, a clear welcoming, and the older beamed at him before stepping in and removing his shoes.

Doyoung watched him as he shrugged off the jacket, quite not knowing what to do with himself. Given their last conversation, he wasn’t sure how to act, what to say to him. Should he just act normal? Should he acknowledge it? He had asked for time, but he found that he didn’t even know what he had intended to do with it.

Stepping into his personal space, Johnny dropped the tupper on his hands. “I was hoping we could have dinner together.”, he said, voice dropping into a whisper, and his hand lifted to Doyoung’s face, caressing down his cheek with the back of it. Doyoung tensed at the touch, even though Johnny’s hand was warm and surprisingly soft. It should be inviting. Doyoung blamed it on his nerves, again.

Johnny opened his mouth to talk once again, but then his expression shifted. Doyoung saw his head suddenly swinging around, as he perked up, and his eyes felt into a squint as if he was trying to spot something.

“This place’s kind of cold,”, he said, suddenly, before Doyoung could even speak, “Go warm these up while I check your windows.”

Doyoung nodded dumbly and parted to the kitchen, puzzled. He turned the stove on, taking out a pan as he frowned. He had been able to turn the heating on just fine this morning, and he’d sworn it was still as potent as ever. He even felt fine, which was rare for him, being sensitive to low temperatures as he was, and he had figured out Johnny was quite the opposite.

Maybe the heater had began losing power, or maybe it had turned itself off during the afternoon, and he had just grown acclimatized to it, so he never noticed. It was unlikely, knowing himself, but not impossible he guessed.

He opened packages of ramen and poured them in the boiling pan as his ears picked up, faintly, the way Johnny was making through the house. The stairs, the bathroom, the office, his room. He stopped a couple seconds in there, and Doyoung mentally cringed, as his mind tried to come up with the reasons. He wondered if he was looking at the bed and remembering what they’d done there. He wondered if he could even remember, given that he, like him, had been drunk.

After a couple more minutes, he heard him walking down the stairs and entering the kitchen. Doyoung’s eyes shoot up briefly, and then back to the pot. He noticed Johnny’s breath was slightly, just slightly agitated.

Suddenly, he felt his heat around him again. “It smells good!”, he said, peering over his shoulder, with a cheer somewhat too strained to be real. Doyoung mentally frowned.

“It’s just kimchi ramen...”, he tried to sound sheepish, trying to hide his suspicion. “Wanna-?“

“The table. I’m on it.”

They ate in amiable conversation. Johnny told him that Yeri was okay, that she had arrived home just fine and that she had apologized for making Doyoung worry. Doyoung found it strange, given her standoffish stance back in the party, but he guessed—hoped—that she had changed her mind. He had been on his best behavior so far, trying his best to win over the people in Neukkdomyeon, true, but his worry that night had been sincere.

Johnny also talked about his mom, telling him about the presents she had gotten and reassuring him not to worry about not bringing his own. After all, he had said, it was only his first birthday in the Suh household. Doyoung didn’t mention that it would also be his last.

In fact, Doyoung didn’t speak all too much. He mostly replied, _hmm_ s and _oh_ s escaping his lips accordingly, as Johnny kept on talking. He found that not having spent a dinner with someone else in such a long time had crippled him unable to find the simple balance between eating and talking. Once again, he found himself feeling slightly alienated.

There was also the sort of apprehension that he still felt, not being able to stop the little voice in the back of his head that reminded him the other night, the feelings vomit he had poured onto the older. The same voice told him that he had said too much already, that Johnny didn’t need every single detail of his life. That he would only burden him if he kept babbling about himself all the time.

Still, it wasn’t an unpleasant dinner. He was just not used to it. 

He didn’t know if he wanted to get used to it.

“By the way,” the older suddenly mentioned, as he was helping Doyoung clean up, “You’ve been double checking the doors at night like I told you, right?” Johnny’s voice suggested a lightness to the statement, like he was just making sure. The younger couldn’t help to feel the suspiciousness from before spiking up again.

“Uhm— yeah.”, he replied, hesitantly. He didn’t have the heart to tell Johnny the only door he had ever used was the front door. He knew there was a garden, he could even see the beautiful woods from his window before going to sleep, but unfortunately, he didn’t have much care for them. He had come to this town with the sole intention of doing his digging and leaving— as much as that had been jeopardized.

Johnny seized him, as if trying to figure out if he was lying, but after a few seconds his shoulders seemed to fall into relaxation, hand reaching out to his face once again. “Triple-check for me tonight, yeah?”

Before Doyoung had time to reply—or more like, to ask what the reason was—he felt Johnny pulling him to his chest, and the warmth of his breath. His lips were parted as he kissed him, and Doyoung imitated him, letting him guide the kiss.

It was rather different than what he usually did, but he found that he didn’t mind at all. He was used to attempting to gain control when he kissed, trying to pull whichever girl he was kissing closer to him and fighting for dominance. But something about Johnny made him want to relax, to not resist him. He forced his muscles to relax, and as the older’s arms snaked around his waist, his own arms instinctively fell around his neck.

Taeyong was right. He wasn’t a kid anymore to angst about fickle things like who he wanted to fuck. He might as well explore himself with Johnny.

His first discovery ended up being that letting the other person take control was much more pleasant than he had expected. He found himself humming and closing his eyes as Johnny’s lips kissed their way down his neck, to his shoulder, and his fingers found a spot to massage right next to his hip bones, digging pleasing circles into his skin.

Doyoung was starting to feel heat like honey dripping down his lower stomach, when Johnny’s teeth digging on his skin, where his shoulder meets his neck. It was painful at first, then pleasing, then painful again. Doyoung let a sound of discomfort, and pulled away.

“Oops”, Johnny looked at him, eyes growing the size of full moons, surprised, “Didn’t mean to bite that hard!”

Doyoung attempted a mock glare at him, too weak to actually reach at him and Johnny let out a laugh. He felt a silver of satisfaction running through him at the sound, and embarrassment for feeling like that right after.

Johnny left not too much after, reminding him once again to make sure to check his doors before sleeping, dropping a delirious peck on his lips before running.

_So much for taking things slow._

The following morning, Doyoung woke up with a sense of urgency. 

He remembered having dreamt of something that got lost within the first thirty seconds of consciousness upon waking up, but whatever that dream had been it threw a harsh reminder on him that he was in Neukddomyeon to find about the _wolves_ , and the least he had done is find out _anything_ about the _wolves_.

He had a bit less than month and a half yet, but he felt like he was missing so much that he almost wished for the first time in his life that he had a partner to help him. It was bigger than him. It was bigger than him and he was afraid he’d lose his job if he couldn’t find the damn information he needed in time. 

It was just random luck that the editorial had gotten suddenly busy, as another well-known writer had dropped her own company and decided to join them all of a sudden. His boss just hadn’t had the time to check on him at all, and Doyoung never thought he could feel more relief at the thought of a paperwork flooded office. 

Once he got his heart rate to calm down and started making his breakfast, he began thinking of the alternatives he had, seriously, for what felt the first time. As he munched on a piece of toast—the last one he had— his brain wrecked itself thinking of places that could hold important information. Or any information at all, really. At this point, he was feeling sort of desperate.

The hospital, he thought. He could go ask about any type of register on the young editors from The Eye. The school as well, they might have a small library or selection of books. If they had their own editorial in town, they might also have had printed books about the town’s history for the kids to learn. Maybe he could talk to some sort of teacher, as well, but the truth was that the least human interaction he had, the more hope he gained about finding anything relevant.

There was the cemetery, as well. And there was some sort of small college really close to it, too. He needed names, dates, events. He was sure he could thread those together if he put his mind to it, but he just… needed the data.

He could attempt to go to the police station, perhaps, thing that he hadn’t tried before simply out of fear of being thrown into jail for a day for snooping, under whatever accusation they felt like making up. But now that he knew someone–Jung Yunho—he felt fairly more confident about it. Yunho simply seemed too nice to arrest him.

And after that, after gathering whatever breadcrumbs of information he could find, he’d take a long, long time to give everything the proper analysis it deserved, and finally, finally solve what the hell was going on in Neukddomyeon.

 _But first_ , he thought, as he drank the last of his unwillingly unsweetened coffee, _groceries shopping_.

When he arrived to Old Joo’s store, he bumped into two incidents that threw him off of his guard.

The first one happened as he walked in and saw the old woman on the counter. He bowed his head slightly to her in a greeting, as always, and then _she bowed back._ Not only that, but _also_ she let out a small good morning, and her face lacked the grimace Doyoung was so used to seeing on it.

Provided, it wasn’t the relaxed expression he had seen on her at the party some nights ago. Her face looked strained, attempting to form a neutrally polite expression and nearly failing to do so. But she was being _polite_ towards him, something Doyoung thought would never have the pleasure to be the receiving end of. 

He felt a small smile trying to lift the corners of his lips but he fought it. He shouldn’t have felt so much joy from a simple acknowledgement, but he couldn’t help it. It was like finally, finally people were opening up to him.

The second thing that threw him took him slightly longer to realize. It was an unusual calmness that reigned in the store, the lack of a nervous energy and a pair of clumsy legs carrying things around in a jittery cluster that had the place feeling slightly empty even though it was the same store with the same lights and about the same quantity of people and goods as always.

It was the lack of _Jeno_ that threw him off.

Doyoung squinted, his neck twisting around trying to look over the aisles to confirm it. Indeed, the young boy couldn’t be found anywhere in the store. Had it been anybody else, he’d just assume he was busy with friends, that he was doing homework, or anything else a teenager did, really. But he knew the boy well. Or more like, he had figured out the boy well, well enough to know that at least an eighty percent of his life happened in the store. He had even caught him with books and pens sprawled around the counter once or twice, tongue peeking as he focused on his homework.

He couldn’t help the frown that twisted his face, and he began feeling slightly restless.

As soon as he finished filling up his casket, he walked up to the check out and saw the old woman where the teen would usually be. When he approached, he noticed her movements turning subtly skittish. It was in the way that her hands grabbed his things as she ringed them, perhaps grabbing them more force than needed, or the way her aged eyes would look up shortly every time he attempted small talk, not in a condescending way, but in a wary one.

Doyoung bit his lip as the woman was finishing up his pile, caught in a dilemma, but ultimately he decided that he _needed_ to know.

“Miss,”, he asked, “Is Jeno okay? I didn’t see him around today… And he’s usually at the store, so…”

Doyoung felt his words die out as he noticed that those tired pupils had fixed on him. There was intention in her look, some sort of emotion that landed somewhere between shock and calculation. He noticed her lips had fallen slightly open, as well, and for a second, Doyoung was truly afraid something bad had happened to the teen.

A heartbeat after, her eyes fell back to her task, as she replied.

“No,”, she dismissed, cutly, “Just his allergies. He will be fine in some days.”

“Oh.”, Doyoung felt a wave of relief wash over him, perhaps stronger than he had expected, “I’m glad, ha.”, he attempted a smile, as he began bagging his items, “Would you tell him I said hi?”

He saw the old woman nod once, eyes still low, as she handed him his change, and Doyoung let out a quiet _thank you_ , slightly dumbfounded. Had he offended the woman, somehow? He truly hoped she was telling the truth and Jeno’s problem was simply his eyes being too swollen and his nose too stuffed to go out.

He hadn’t walked over a block, two bags on each hand as those thoughts filled up his head, when he felt a sudden pain on his shoulder, and he was turned by force.

“ _You_ need to leave _now_.”

Doyoung gasped as he heard a familiar voice, low and threatening. He looked up to find a handsome face distorted in anger, red rising up an otherwise pale neck and eyebrows knitted together.

“Yoonoh!”, he heard a female voice approaching, but said man paid no mind to the call.

“What?!”, Doyoung managed to let out, breathless, still bewildered. On the corner of his eye, he saw the bags he had been holding with his groceries all spilled out on the grass of a front yard.

“You don’t belong _here_ . I don’t understand… I don’t know how you _can’t_ see it.”, the man kept saying, shoulders hunched in a menacing way, staring straight into his eyes. Doyoung’s hand reached out to his own shoulder, gripping the pain that was starting to spread. Yoonoh had gripped him with much more force than necessary. “You can’t be here anymore. Leave today. Leave now!”

Yoonoh sounded wild and contained at the same time, and Doyoung felt his pulse shoot up in fear. He saw female hand reach around his bicep, pushing him away from him, but Yoonoh shook it off.

“I-I’m gonna leave soon-“, Doyoung stammered, pleading his feet to react and back away at least some from the angry man. “In a month I’ll be-“

“That’s not soon enough!”, Yoonoh roared and he took a step forward. “Now! It has to be _now_!”

“Yoonoh!”, the female voice yelled again, “Fuck, come on! _Jaehyun_!”

Doyoung recognized Sooyoung’s panicked face trying to pull Yoonoh away from him, trying to turn him around desperately, but his eyes were fixed on him, boring into him with so much disgust and fury that he felt like he was frozen on his place. He felt himself a prey, a small rabbit in front of a monster waiting to be devoured, and his pulse spiked up even more, if that was possible.

Why?! Why was Yoonoh attacking him like that out of nowhere?!

Suddenly, his vision was eclipsed by a broad figure in front of him, standing between them. The figure pushed Yoonoh, sending him stumbling back a couple steps. A flash of auburn hair made Doyoung realize that it was Johnny, Johnny was the figure.

The older was hunched, arms on his sides making him look menacing, ready to attack, as he stared at the younger man wordlessly. Doyoung could peek from over his shoulder how Yoonoh’s face lost the wilderness, melting into contained ire. Sooyoung, a couple steps behind him, stood straighter than he had ever seen her, her expression more frightened than guilty.

For some seconds, there was absolute silence, except for a noise Doyoung wasn’t sure he was imagining. Something really low, something he had heard before but couldn’t place where, coming from Johnny’s throat.

Then, chest rising up and down, Yoonoh let his eyes fall.

Doyoung saw Johnny’s muscles relaxing, but posture still held, just like the other two.

“Doyoung”, he called, turning only slightly, and for the first time the younger got a look at his expression. His eyebrows were furrowed together in the most furious expression he had seen from him yet. “Get your stuff. I’m taking you home.”

Doyoung felt his heart hammer on his chest as he nodded, and fell on his knees, scrambling to pick all the things he had bought with shaky hands. He saw another pair of hands helping him, just as shaky as his. He looked up to find a curtain of black hair, eyes that refused to look at him, and plump lips pressed together.

“T-thank you, Sooyoung.”, he whispered, before getting up and looking around, trying to find the familiar truck. He found Yoonoh nowhere to be seen, and the slam of a door helped him locate the vehicle.

Once he was inside and the motor running, he put on his belt and crossed his arms, dead silent. He fixed his eyes on the highway, because every time he caught a glance of Johnny, the man seemed to be gripping the wheel with so much strength that Doyoung worried it would break. 

Before he knew it, they had parked in front of the house.

Doyoung bit his lip once again, grabbing his grocery bags, not knowing what to say. “Johnny, I-“

“It’s okay.”, Johnny cut him, “You’re okay.”

“Yes.”, he sighed, “Thank you.”

He saw Johnny’s chest going up and down in a deep breath.

“Lock your doors.”

Doyoung felt a weight drop down his stomach as he climbed down the truck, bags in his hands. He heard the truck turning on again, and leaving as he walked to his door, thoughts still a complete disaster, and he left the bags on the floor to fish for his keys. As he picked them, hands barely trembling now, by chance, his eyes caught something on his front wall he hadn’t noticed before.

There weren’t many, but they ran down the wood for a good length, not too deeply. Doyoung hadn’t seen any like those before, but he was completely sure what they were.

Scratch marks.

There were scratch marks on his front wall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know, i know what yall thinking. "why did it take u so long to update smh" man if I KNEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im reaaally sorry, i dont know why this chapter took me so long to come up with!! but i hope it was worth the wait
> 
> aaaa we got a really cute johndo moment, huh? i hope it makes up for the previous one oof... and i hope jaedonators dont hate me for the jaehyun-doyoung scene LMAO!! i really enjoyed writing it though. not gonna lie, jaehyun is one of my fave side characters, along with yeri and jeno! :D i hope u guys like them too!
> 
> i think that we're about to enter the last act of the story, if we could call it like that. i hope u guys are still hooked!! thank u sooo much for last chapters response by the way!! im really thankful for all the comments and i apoligize for always replying to them late T_T thank u so much !!! they really help me get through inspiration slumps. 
> 
> by the way, there's a johndo week being organized! the prompts are already up to claim, u guys should look into them !! here u can find everything: https://twitter.com/johndoweek
> 
> By the way #2: this is kinda overdue but it completely flew over my head last chapter, the wonderful @volatear on twitter made a mood board for this fic!! Everybody check it out here!!:  
> https://twitter.com/volatear/status/1246184181044072450?s=21  
> Thank u so much again!!!
> 
> anyways, enough talking. thank u sooo much for reading and see u in two weeks!!!!!!!! <3


	11. Chapter 11

“By the way,” fingers dug on his arm, preventing him from walking out the tattered clinic doors. He could feel the sharp of the nails and the rare strength of those feminine fingers dig through his sweater, “There’s a campfire on Sunday. You will come.” Sooyoung didn’t phrase it as a question.

Doyoung couldn’t help the intrigue in his eyes, feeling taken aback, as he eyed the girl. That’s all it took for his mind to begin crowding with questions, questions that he knew would make him sound more paranoid than he intended, even more than the people in Neukddomyeon probably suspected he was. He hadn’t able to choose one to formulate before he was interrupted again.

“Johnny told me to ask you.”, she proceeded, impatiently, and even though her eyes stayed intense on him, he could hear the roll of her eyes in her tone. “So I’m telling you. You have to show up.”

Doyoung barely stammered an agreement before she was releasing his shoulder and walking away, steps stout and nearly angry. Had she had been in her usual type of outfits, Doyoung was sure he’d have found her intimidating, but in her loose nurse scrub and white shoes, the effect was a bit more than slightly lost.

It was weird, Doyoung had thought when he first recognized her, to see her long black curtain not framing her face for once, tamed in a low ponytail on her back. Sooyoung definitely looked younger like that, even softer, but her eyes still held that fierce he had almost grown accostumed to seeing in her, especially when her eyes were on him.

He had felt the weight of her eyes as soon as he had walked into Neukddomyeon’s only medical center, a little over an hour earlier. He had taken no more than five steps into the building before was taken to a corner and ambushed by her, asking him in an annoyed hushed voice what he wanted there. Doyoung had been surprised, out of all of the jobs he could have had imagined the girl having, nursing would have been definitely last on the list.

What hadn’t surprised Doyoung the slightest had been her initial reluctance to help him in any way – wether it was by pointing him at someone who was willing to give him the information he came looking for or giving it herself – until he had decided to play a wild card.

 _“Johnny told me you would help me.”_ , he had lied.

It was a lie out of desperation, partially, and the other part was out of curiosity. He had noticed the way Johnny’s friends had responded to him; back in the bar – and even in the party, the unusual casual carefulness the group seemed to have around him. He also remembered the way she had dropped next to Doyoung —much less casual, much less willing— to help him pick back his things as soon as Johnny had told her to, only a few days ago. The reason was still a mystery to him, but he had been curious nevertheless. He had wondered how far it reached, and even when he felt slightly bad about it, how useful it could be to him.

And once again, Johnny’s authority had worked, because as soon as he said those words Sooyoung pressed her lips together in a suppressed scowl, and took him to the computers on the empty reception. 

So it could potentially be quite useful, he guessed.

_“Park Sandara.”, Doyoung quickly said, as the girl tapped her fingers on the keyboard, marking an impatient beat._

_Sooyoung threw a look at him over her shoulder, half scowling once again at Doyoung’s closeness to her, and Doyoung blissfully ignored it. He couldn’t move away, he needed to be able to look at the screen himself, unwilling to miss any detail he could potentially get. She entered the name, and the computer took only a minute to load the register._

_Doyoung saw the file with no picture, but a quick calculation on the date of birth told him it could be her. The date and cause of death solidified that belief._

_Cause of Death: Carbon monoxide in lungs. Third degree burns._

_He swallowed, reading over other data in her profile. She was from Seoul, recently graduated from Chugye. There was also her weight, height, approximated hour of death, all written in the cold gray of the font on the screen._

_“Is that all?”_

_“Kwon Jiyoung.”_

_Sooyoung sighed, and began typing once again, the sound of the keys being pressed echoing the hall much more than Doyoung expected. He winced at that, slightly worried about someone coming for some reason, even though he was with allowed personnel, and this wasn’t even the first time he’d be getting information for a case in this way. The profile finally loaded, another pictureless one. Another cause of death by carbon monoxide and burns on the same date. Another one from Seoul and Chugyu._

_“Are you done? ‘Cause I-“_

_“One more.”, Doyoung was quick to cut her, his mind running with information, data, numbers, dates, eyebrows joined together in a frown, “Just one more, please. Seunghyun, Choi Seunghyun.”_

_The profile loaded and Doyoung felt his eyes unfocusing as they stayed fixed in the screen. It matched. Everything matched. These kids had been murdered in Neukddomyeon, just like he had suspected. They were murdered because they knew too much. Because they had found too much._

_Suddenly, he saw Sooyoung’s eyes widen, eyes that had previously been boredly looking at the screen, and she stood straighter. Her hand flew to the monitor, and suddenly it was all black._

_“I think you’ve already seen enough.”_

He had begun walking back home in stressed steps the second Sooyoung kicked him out of the place, hands in his pockets, as his mind stirred once again. The three editor’s, once again, brimmed his mind, as his eyes were lost on his own thoughts more than on the grey asphalt they were directed at.

As he understood it, they had found out something about… about the deaths, or about wolves, or… or about what? And they had published about it. And then the fire happened.

That was the timeline he had supposed, and now had confirmed. It also confirmed the fact that they had died in the town. He wished he could confirm the cause of the fire, but even if he went to the police station and somehow got a hold of the incident’s register, he didn’t think that the information there would have stuck to the actual facts. There was something extremely organized, something a bit too well covered about it that made Doyoung feel like this wasn’t just a bunch of people in it. It felt bigger.

Every piece of information he found branched out more and more, like the hidden roots of an ancient tree, twisting, growing into new ones, barely ever coming to the surface, and maybe his shovel wasn’t big enough to dig it out on his own.

Doyoung felt himself breathing in and out slowly, as he considered that.

Rationally, he knew that he should feel afraid. He should feel extremely afraid, and he should be rushing home, packing his bags and making up whatever he could to fill in the rest of the story, to give his editor something interesting to read. He should finish the rest of the book in the commodity of his small apartment, in his computer, trying to focus amongst the noisy sounds coming from the streets, like he had always done. Completely safe. Completely secure.

Except he felt nothing like that. He was suspicious, he felt stirred, he felt alert. He felt the need to dig more and more, to unravel every single bit of the story. He needed to know about the town. He needed to know what happened all those years ago.

He needed to know about the wolves.

Doyoung was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts when he caught a patch of auburn out of the corner of his eye. It was Johnny, of course, but he was almost a block and a half away, chatting with someone, more into the woods peeking into the town than on the sidewalk.

Maybe it was the paranoia seeping into him from the thoughts he had been having on his way down, but something in him told him to stay hidden. Without a second thought, he swiped behind the closest hiding spot he could find, which turned out to be an old car parked in front of a lawn.

He saw Johnny nodding as the other person talked to him. It was a man, from what Doyoung could tell, much shorter than the older. Something about him seemed out of place in a way that made Doyoung feel like he wasn’t from here, as well-- something in the way his hands moved as he talked, something in the way he carried himself, some sort of pride and liveliness that he hadn’t seen in the people in Neukddomyeon. His clothes as well, the coat that hung from his shoulders, a deep purple that would have looked excessive on a town’s person, seemed to fit him like he wore them to bed.

Doyoung’s eyebrows rose in surprise. The closest he’d seen to a foreigner there was Leeteuk, who had, according to himself, visited Seoul several times, but hadn’t ever insinuated anything about staying. He wondered what kind of conversation they were having, the faint midday sun reflecting at times the several ring he seemed to be wearing as he talked.

Some part of him—a part of him he wasn’t even aware that existed—also noticed the distance between them, which wasn’t too much but was enough, with satisfaction. Another part of him fell instantly embarrassed over that thought.

After a couple of minutes, Doyoung realized he could hear a faint murmur of whatever they were talking about. Instinctually, his eyes fell closed, head turning to the sound, attempting to try to make out any of what was being said.

He gave up not a lot of time after; it was completely useless. That murmur is as far as his ears would take him. Doyoung was debating with himself whether going there to interrupt the conversation or staying put like he was when he saw the stranger pull out something out of his pocket with one hand and with the other grab Johnny’s. Suddenly, his legs itched to walk up to them, but his curiosity won over when he saw the man drop whatever he had taken from his pocket on Johnny’s palm, closing it into a fist. And then, with both hands over said fist, he said some more words, words that Johnny listened with an intent look.

Doyoung felt himself grow more and more impatient, but then, the fist was dropped, a couple bows were exchanged, and the stranger was gone.

Doyoung watched dumbfounded as the stranger walked into the woods, until a sense of urgency hit him like a wave, telling him that, indeed, he should be going as well. Especially taking into account how strangely attuned Johnny seemed to be to him, always coming upon him like he had a sixth sense. Without waiting a second, he turned towards way he had come from, and began walking back into the center as fast as he could without looking suspicious.

Before he knew it, he was in front of Old Joo’s, no signs of auburn hair or a tall figure lurking around, and his chest deflated in relief.

 _This works_ , he thought, eyeing the entrance. He could buy whatever he needed to make some good dinner, and he would attempt to find an opening to ask about the man that very same night. Doyoung nodded to himself, formulating a plan of action in his head, as he walked through the doors and greeted the old lady. He needed more answers. He’d get more answers.

He picked up his things without the usual laziness he’d walk aisles around with, and he quickly found himself in the register, ringing up his items, and leaving the store. However, even with his mind lost in his plan, there was something he couldn’t help to notice yet again.

He couldn’t help to notice that there was still no sign of Jeno.

  
The floor behind him creaked and creaked as it was walked on and Doyoung frowned, thinking that the sound should have been more familiar to him by now.

It should, given that he had been hearing it most of these last few days, starting just shy after the sky went dark, after Johnny showed up at his door with some sort of food container, a smile, and a self invitation for diner. It should be, since most of those dinners would be proceeded by a VHS on, their two bodies squeezed together on the old couch, and Johnny’s strong arm around his shoulder, cuddling him up to him. It should be, since the older would stay until so late that Doyoung’s eyelids would barely hold open, begging him to just give in and fall asleep to the heat of the body next to him.

It should be familiar, but it wasn’t. At least not tonight.

Doyoung felt himself consciously stopping his skin from jumping, as he heard the older walking around behind him, hands filthy with bits and pieces of cuts of raw meat and vegetables, as he was still preparing what was going to be their meal. He heard Johnny approaching and looking over his shoulder, passing an arm around his waist with an easiness that would startle him internally, as if he’d already done it countless times.

“Smells good,” he commented, pleased.

Doyoung turned his head slightly, a nervous smile tightening his lips, as he got back to his task and focused on relaxing his muscles. He reprimanded himself; he’d slept with his man. He trusted him. There was no reason for him to react like this.

He decided that he was going to attribute his reactions tonight to the nervous anticipation over the questions he was intending to ask. He wanted to know about that man. He needed to know. He didn’t know why, but there was something about the exchange that refused to sit well on him, making his skin buzz and his heart rate pick up every time he thought about it. He wasn’t even sure if he had to do with the wolves at all, but there was something in his mind telling him that he shouldn’t brush that off. That it was _important_.

He just couldn’t let this go. He wasn’t going to.

As soon as he put the meat on the grill, he felt Johnny moving away and mortifyingly, his body immediately missed the body heat he took away with him. Johnny’s hands knowingly went around picking everything they’d need from the cabinets around them and placed it on the table quietly, as he did every day. He heard the pots, the glasses, the cutlery all being set as he focused on cooking the meat to an acceptable point.

A good meal would get him more willing to open up, or so he had thought, when he figured out he’d make the bulgogi back in the store. He had vague memories of the dish being served when he was young, way before his father left, way before the memory could be more visual than olfactory. Pushing down that memory before it could resurface wholly, he finally served the food, and sat down.

“You went all out today, huh.”, he saw the older smirk as he chewed, and despite himself , something pleased stirred in him, “Tastes even better than it smells, as expected from you, Doie.”

Doyoung found his lips curling in a genuine smile at the compliment, “Ah— thanks.”

Cooking was not something he did often—yet, it was something often wished he’d do more. He enjoyed it much more than he gave it credit for, and he had entertained the wishful idea of cooking for a big table more than once. There was something about the process that he found leveling the way only manual activities did; having to put his complete focus on an actions, allowing his mind to go blank, with the bonus of a full (hopefully) tasty meal as a result.

There was also something _reassuring_ about being able to cook a full meal. When he had just moved out on his own, between college and rent, Doyoung had found himself feeding off cheap, discount ramen and homemade coffee most days. Some days it hadn’t been enough, some days he had gone to sleep after rolling in his bed for hours, stomach complaining under the need of something more than noodles and water.

The days he regretted quitting college, he remembered those nights and found himself going back on his word, quitting had been the best decision for someone in his position. _Whatever_ , he’d tell himself when he’d hear from his former high-school classmates’ grand graduates parties, trips, medals, etcetera, _you go to college to get a job. And I already found a job._

  
They began eating in silence, as it happened sometimes. Some days, Johnny had come with a big smile and a million words to say, which paired up with meals full of mindless conversation about movies they shared interests in, books Doyoung recommended Johnny, hiking trails Johnny recommended Doyoung, and so on. Those days were fun. The other days, the ones that happened slightly more often, Johnny would come in with eye-bags and just the corners of his mouth turned up; still a smile, but a tired, polite one. Those days were relaxing, with very little conversation and much more of hanging out on the couch.

Either way, he found those meals comforting, almost as if he was forced to avoid thinking of wolves for a couple hours.

Today it was slightly different, though. Doyoung had noticed no eye-bags, but also no smile as he had walked in. Johnny had been quieter than his quiet days, and he wondered how much of that was to blame on the foreign man. Still, that mood hadn’t stopped him from digging enthusiastically on the spicy meat, which felt reassuring.

“You know,”, he began as casual as possible, emboldened by Johnny’s apetite, “I went to Old Joo’s today.”

The older’s eyebrows rose, “Oh?”

Doyoung nodded, as he bit a spoonful of rice, “And when I came back,” he continued, as he chewed, eyes falling to his dish once again, as he tried to keep his tone casual, “I think I came across you.”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Doyoung felt the atmosphere densify. The quiet between them suddenly molded into silence, so thick and heavy that Doyoung thought that it was that what was keeping his lungs from filling with much needed air.

After what felt close to an eternity, he looked up, only to find Johnny placing more meat on his rice, picking both with his sticks and taking them to his mouth, as if no words had been spoken. Suddenly, his eyes shoot up and into Doyoung’s, with another inquisitive eyebrow raise. This time, however, it was different. It was a challenge.

Doyoung’s heart reacted as such.

“You should have come and said hi.”, Johnny simply commented, after Doyoung held the intense silence, going for a casually distracted voice.

“You were with a man.”, he shot back almost too quickly, “I didn’t wanna interrupt.”

“Oh, yeah”, he put some more food in his mouth, “I was.”

“I’ve— It’s the first time I saw him.”, Doyoung winced internally. He was starting to sound a bit too accusatory, “He sort of looked from outside, like me.”

Johnny snorted to that, and for the first time, he looked up and into his eyes, ”You haven’t seen everyone in the town yet, Doyoung.”

Doyoung held his gaze for a bit, feeling it weighting him down, seizing him. He still couldn’t put a name to the emotion they held, but whatever it was, it made him drop his own.

“Yeah,” he bit his lip for a second, with growing frustration. “I guess you’re right.”

And he was, Johnny _was_ right, but there was something _different_ about this man and Doyoung knew it. He felt it. He wasn’t from Neukddomyeon at all.

“Hey.” Doyoung looked up to catch Johnny standing up, the chair screeching under his drag, and walking around the table up to him. He felt one of his hands cupping his cheek, making him look up to him, and he found himself allowing it. Johnny’s voice sounded tender—and even slightly amused—as he said, “Are you jealous? Come on.”

The abrupt change left Doyoung slightly dizzy. 

He felt the older making him stand up, and he crowded him against the table as he thought. Was he jealous? No. No? He felt confused, all of a sudden, even more than he usually did. This man was after all just another man. Another character in that strange town. Why would he feel so affronted by him? Johnny could be right. Maybe he had felt some sort of jealousy over him. Maybe he was letting his feelings speak over his rationality a bit too much, clouding his intuition. 

He dropped his eyes and his lips replied before his mind, “Maybe.”

He heard the low rumble of a laugh, and found Johnny’s lips curled into a smirk once again, as the pad of his fingers began caressing his cheek up and down. Doyoung found happiness, actual glee in the shine of his eyes, as he looked at him between crinkles. And most importantly, he found something missing; Johnny’s guard.

“So, you done eating?”, he then said, instead, “Let’s watch something cute tonight.”

He was in the middle.

Of what, he wasn’t sure. But he knew he was in the middle because he was surrounded. There was movement, lumps, sounds, laughs, growls, all indistinguishable to the point of claustrophobia, and Doyoung felt himself trapped, somehow.

He realized he actually is trapped, as he somehow caught a sight of the rope tying his arms behind his back, but around a pole digged into the ground. There was more chatter, more giggles around him, and he started realizing that they were people. There was people. There was even some familiar faces, as well —Yeri, Old Joo, Jongin , Leeteuk— all walking around him, all gleeful. It was a celebration.

Then, hands started reaching up to him, there was dozens, hundreds; his entire vision got filled with blackened hands reaching up to him, and they started grabbing at him, grabbing at his skin and _ripping_. Tears of his skin began being ripped down as if he was being peeled, and he was not even screaming in surprise. He just stayed put, just watching as each hand grabbed an end of him and started walking around the pole, strings of his skin breaking more and more off of him as their circling continued.

The circle started walking faster all of a sudden, and faster, and _faster_ , and his skin was being shred off of him more, and more, and _more_ , and his heart quickens, as it revealed… it revealed—

“Hey!”

Doyoung let out a scream.

He opened his eyes, finally focusing on his surrounds, and he found the older looking at him. His eyes were warm, like he was just laughing, and his hand is on his shoulder.

”You fell asleep.”, Johnny explained, massaging his shoulder in reassurance. Doyoung grumbled, still disoriented, as he felt his heart trying to calm down. “I better take you to bed.”

He felt the older’s arms sneaking around his back, and seconds later he was lifted. His own arms surround his neck, automatically, and he lets his cheek rest on his shoulder as he’s being taken up the stairs. He almost fell asleep like that again, but only realized about it as Johnny woke him up again when he let him down into his covers.

Out of nowhere, a thought popped into his head.

“Johnny?”, he called out, and the older replied only with an interested expression. “There’s a bonfire on Sunday?”

Johnny smiled warmly, “Yeah. Did Sooyoung invite you?”

“Mmhmm.” Doyoung nodded, breathing in deep as he snuggled into the weight of his covers, eyes already closed again, “Told me you told her to.”

“Yeah,”, he sounded fond, “Go to sleep, Doie.”

He nodded once again, far too gone for words. He wasn’t able to distinguish Johnny leaving, nor the door on his way out, as darkness fell on his mind like a comforting blanket once again.

Doyoung welcomed a night of dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay I’m finally slept and well fed ladies gents and inbetweeners so here’s a proper authors note!!:
> 
> Ehem, ehem.... I’m SORRYYYYYY! God. I’m so sorry for the lateness! This chapter was the hardest to come out of all. Mostly, because it’s kind of a transition chapter and its somewhat hard for me to write those? Anyway, I hope that even if nothing too major goes on, you guys still enjoyed it. I think this one keeps feeding on the mystery, right? Hehe  
> How do u guys like joy? I think she’s starting to grow on me. And johndo’s relationship? It’s growing, isn’t it? Or is it? :00000  
> And most importantly, *johnny voice* who’s that guy?
> 
> ;)
> 
> On different news, we hit 2k+ readers!! Yay!! Thank u so much!!! Please expect a couple presents during this week to thank you all for it <3 thank you for taking an interest, following and supporting this story so much! 
> 
> One last important announcement before we keep going: in the story I wrote at first that Doyoung was going to stay for 2 months, but it’s now officially changed to 3, okay?? Good. Love ya!
> 
> Anyways, see u at the campfire in a couple weeks? <3 hehe


	12. Interlude II

**_Due to the moon_ **

****

He woke up.

Fire ran down his veins, scorching, twisting his muscles into contractions. He felt his body twist up, his skin feeling tighter, suffocating him, begging him. Begging him! He needed out. He needed to get out!

It raged harder, the fire, and he twisted into himself harder. A scream burnt out of his throat, a loud metallic _bang_ shot through his ear, echoing, and he screamed again.

“It’s okay!”, a voice begged him, “It’s okay!”

His limbs were being gripped, suddenly. He felt sharpness dig into his skin like punctures, but the pain was nothing compared to the next wave of combustion inside of him. Why was he hurting so much? What was happening? He twisted again, this time being held, and a new voice was there. He couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t understand.

He was up.

Tears began dampening his cheeks, and he felt his chest heaving up and down, up and down, up and down, fighting for air, fighting for recovery but he was still tense, waiting for the next wave of pain. He whimpered, sobbing some more, and the cold of the metal where he was laying only served to inject him with more panic.

What was going on? Where was he? He needed to leave. He wanted to leave, shred his skin, unclench his muscles, relax his jaw, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t. He was being held down. He was being held down!

He heard another sound coming from him but this one was angrier, stronger, it rumbled down his neck, and the pain came back tenfold. He cried harder, _roared_ harder, and twisted, twisted, he needed to be free. He was going to get free!

His legs, his arms, all of him began fighting as hard as the burn scorched him and then, and then! One of his arms got free. Without a thought his fingers tensed and came back down fast, clawing at whatever it reached.

There was another scream, but this time it didn’t come from him.

Soon, a different grip—harder, harder than anything he’d ever felt before— took a hold on his wayward arm and _twisted_ , and he _whined_ to the new ache.

“Hey, it’s okay.”, the voice said, calm, so calm, so different from him, “You’re okay.”

Something in him made him stop his struggle, the fire still lapping at him from the inside. He felt himself whine louder, a long, hurt sound, and there was a hand on his head now, between his locks. The touch was calming; some of the heat subdued at it.

He felt himself sob some more. He needed to get out. He wanted to get out. The hand traveled to his shoulder, and there was another reassuring press. 

“You’re going to be fine, Jeno.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So!!!!!!!!!!!!!! here we are!! over 2.5k readers this is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> and here's my thank u for it!! thank u for supporting this story guys! your comments, kudos, even just the number of views going up is so encouraging to me. i always talk about how important it is to write what one wants and not care about the reception and i still stand by it. but the fact that im being able to create something that not only i love, but i see so many people liking as well, it just makes me feel elated!
> 
> so here im leaving you guys interlude I (located between chapter 5 and 7) and II. im dropping jussst a little bit of insight on other POVS here, so pay attention to them!
> 
> thank u again for your support, i really adore u guys!! see u next update!!
> 
> (ps: remember u guys also can ask stuff on my cc or twitter! @pikwanchu for both usernames hehe <3)  
> (ps2: i might edit this later for grammar mistakes and such ! owo)


	13. Chapter 13

The relentless heat of the fire reached at him lazily from where he was sitting, licking at his legs, at his shoulders, at his cheekbones. It wasn’t an aggravating type of heat, but there was something in it, in the way it prickled at his skin through his clothes that wouldn’t let him be completely off edge.

Maybe it was the way it echoed his nightmare, the structure of the bonfire being so similar to the one where he had been bounded in that surreal situation, the thing wasn’t letting him relax completely.

Doyoung felt his hand reaching at his neck, nervously, taking between his fingers the foreign object hanging from around it. He followed the intricate patterns of the shining material whose name he desperately refused to find out, the smoothness of the crystal part of it, the shifting weight of the liquid inside the crystal container, as he felt unease weighting down in his stomach once again and his mind wandered to just a few hours before, when Johnny had given it to him.

He had been crowded against the still unlit fireplace as soon as they arrived to the meeting place, not being given the time to even take a full look around, and his initial thought had only been a guilty worry about people seeing two men so close to each other in public, wondering what they’d think of it.

_“I know you said about taking things slowly…” Johnny had looked up from his fee, waiting for his reaction. Doyoung just nodded, cluelessly, as he stared into his eyes, former thoughts completely derailed._

He remembered the way Johnny had held him with one hand on his hip

_“And I respect that. So don’t think too much of this, but…”, the hand in his pocket was suddenly being pulled out and reaching for one of Doyoung’s. He felt his warm fingers enclosing his, rough as ever, and some sort of object being pressed on his palm. “I just saw this and I wanted to get it for you. So I kind of did.”_

_As Johnny’s hands freed him, his eyes shoot to his own._

He remembered paling at the sight.

_Laying in the middle of his palm, there was a necklace._

Doyoung’s initial reaction had been panic, panic at the gesture, panic at the money spent behind it –because damn, that silver didn’t look a single bit the cheap Johnny swore it was– but especially, panic at the meaning behind it. It just seemed like a gesture a step too close to something deep, something permanent, and Doyoung wasn’t sure how the older could act like this (whatever it was, whatever they had been having going on) wasn’t going to end the second Doyoung finished his investigation.

He had tried to give it back, tried coming up with convincing arguments that Johnny had completely glossed over.

_“Wear it.”, Johnny had said, a firm edge to his voice present once again, as if he hadn’t seen the alarm Doyoung was sure his face was showing. Before he knew it, the necklace was gone from his hand and being lifted around his neck. “For tonight, yeah? You can take it off tomorrow, just… please me tonight, will you, Doie?”_

Doyoung swallowed at the memory, as he toyed with the pendant once again. It was large– at least for him, who was only used to wearing the thinnest of jewelry and only when he needed to look somewhat special to be able to be let into an exclusive place for an exclusive interview with whichever exclusive person he had been trying to unmask. The usual type of work that involved him being not himself. 

It was almost as big as a quarter of his palm, which was understandable, since it was holding not only a structure of metal, but also a tiny vial with some caramel substance in it. Still, if he closed his hand he could cover it completely and then some, but its design made it garish enough for him to feel uncomfortable about it.

Sighing, his eyes wandered from the flames to the set up around him, sweeping over mindlessly to the different groups of people chatting, eating, sitting on the logs set around the bonfire.

Further, he saw Johnny in the barbeque talking to some older men as he flipped meat around in a way that made Doyoung feel like he was ages older than he really was. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed; the second after Johnny had made sure he was wearing his gift, he began moving around the entire camp, organizing and managing people to get the set up done in time for the reunion to start.

As Doyoung ended up understanding, whatever was going on there was something closer to a mingle than a town reunion, with the fire set in the middle more for decoration than for actual use, and sitting places surrounding it, in the middle of the forest. There were about forty to fifty people, most of them being people he had already at the very least seen, including Johnny’s friends and his mother and grandmother.

Both Jungs were there as well, sitting next to each other, the older cuddled to Yoonoh as if providing comfort of some type. Every once in a while, he saw someone walking up to them to strike up conversation, which Yunho conceded with a bright smile, but his younger brother just kept his eyes away and his mouth shut. Doyoung thought he was quite moody for someone with a manly face like that.

To his intense disappointment, there was no sign of Jeno tonight, either.

He was mentally gathering courage to stand up and go ask Old Joo about him (who _was_ at the reunion, talking casually to Myoryeon like her grandson hadn’t been missing from society for almost two weeks now), when he heard the telling crunch of leaves of someone coming up to him.

As he turned, he was shocked to find Yeri.

The teen was standing there, shoulders scrunched up, and two plastic cups in her hands. Her eyes were looking to the side, and her chin was slightly dipped and everything in her demeanor made his brain point out that she looked like a child about to beg mercy for breaking his windows with her football ball.

“Hey” he opted to say, instead.

“Hi-um.”, she stretched her hand, offering him one of the cups, “Hi.”

Doyoung accepted it, feeling the fascination bloom in his own eyes, and quickly concealing it. It was just too strange; this girl- apprehensive, reticent- was strikingly different to the one he had met almost a month ago, the bold girl void of remorse for interrupting a conversation or taking away a participant.

He swirled the contents of his new cup and was surprised to find it was beer. He awkwardly left his own cup on the floor next to him, half empty with some sort of soda, as he took a sip of the one offered to him, as he waited for her to begin talking.

“So- um.”, she began, arms crossed, still looking away, and Doyoung’s eyes flickered back to her. She stayed silent for another beat, before kicking the ground, in frustration, “Argh-! This is so hard!”

Doyoung frowned, confused, but felt his lips trying to pull themselves into an amused smile. He couldn’t help to find the sudden short tantrum slightly adorable.

“I wanted to… apologize.”, she let out, finally, eyebrows frowned in what Doyoung figured out was dissention, the feeling of being a child being made to apologize spiking up even more, “For being nasty and rude the other night, I mean. It wasn’t okay.”, there was a slight pout in her voice, “You were just worried about me.”

Doyoung blinked, caught off guard by the last sentence. Up until then, Doyoung thought she was apologizing for her behavior in the party, not after it. To be fair, out of all the things that had happened after the party, it wasn’t Yeri’s problem nor reaction what had lingered in his mind the most.

“I just want to start with the right foot- or, um. You know, not antagonize you and stuff.”

Doyoung’s confusion grew exponentially, mouth slightly ajar, but this time as he tried to make sense of her words. He had supposed she had been told that he was going to stay for a period only. But her words seemed to insinuate the opposite. Had she not been informed? Or maybe she knew about him and Johnny –whatever it was they were- and she supposed that he was going to stay–?

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as Johnny materialized himself next to him.

“Yeri”, he called, and the teen dropped her arms, arms that had been crossed, as she stood slightly straighter, “It’s not done yet. Go get yourself a burger. You’ll be able to detect it when it’s done.”

The girl nodded, threw an uncertain look at Doyoung, and instantly walked away without another word. He followed her with his graze, now surprised at her compliance, until he felt the older plopping down next to him. Next thing he knew, he had a burger on his own hand.

“Done?”, he asked, the familiar vague feeling of being missing something settling in his stomach once again as his mind went over Johnny’s words, “What will she be able to detect?”

Johnny took a bite of a burger that Doyoung just saw in hands, as he settled in the uncomfortable log seat, and eyed the fire, “The other batch of burgers isn’t done yet” he shrugged.

The younger nodded, pensively, as he let his eyes drift away from the man next to him. He found himself staring past the fire, right into the dark nothingness that was the silhouette of the woods ahead of him.

Like this, in the middle of a night dark like this one, the shapes of the trees were indistinguishable from one another. It was like they had molded into one big mass, one big void that should have looked menacing, but instead, somehow, ended up looking calm. The trees extended tall, starkingly darker than the sky, jabbing themselves into it. Like walls, protecting him.

He wondered if it wouldn’t be more appropriate to feel _caged_.

As he had this thought, he was suddenly reminded of Yeri’s words, and consequently, of Johnny’s. There was something about them that he couldn’t… Something in his mind telling him that he shouldn’t ignore.

The thing was that Yeri’s body language matched much more with her actual words, than with what Doyoung was making himself interpret from them.

 _Caged,_ the word rang in his mind once again, and he felt his pulse pick up.

Suddenly, he felt the warmth of a hand on the back of his neck, and he startled, only to find Johnny staring at him.

“Scared of the woods?”

“Huh?”, Doyoung asked, and he felt those fingers starting to wander up and down in a gentle caress. He felt them tangling with the short hairs of his neck, and down into his shirt, comforting.

“You were frowning, staring right into them.”, he explained, the corner of his lips lifting with slight amusement.

“Ah. Well,” he felt himself standing straighter and swallowed, “yes. They are… pretty tall.”

The lie fell from his lips naturally, and the fond laugh he got from Johnny as a response confirmed it effective. “Oh, then, maybe a little walk into them will help with it?” ,” he instantly shoot, shuffling himself closer to him, “When we’re done here?”

Doyoung’s eyes found the older looking at him again, with their usual intenseness, “Uh.” and he could only nod his head dumbly again, “Sure.”

Johnny let the soft touches on his neck travel all the way to the cheek, thumb swiping slowly at his cheekbone . “Great,” he murmured, and Doyoung felt himself going pink under his touch.

Doyoung let his eyes fall, staring inadvertedly at the half eaten burger in his hand, as he let himself be petted by the older. There was an unexpected softness in every single of the touches the older gave him, a care put in them that always startled him without a fail.

Johnny held him with the delicateness one held something as precious as breakable. With caution, like Doyoung would run away if he took one wrong step. Yet, and this was the strangest thing of it all, he seemed to _enjoy_ it. He seemed to enjoy having to move with care around him. There was the imagery of a lion stepping heedfully as it stalked its prey, claws digging into the earth with control in his mind.

Still, he couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that wished he could enjoy it as well. _Really_ enjoy it. He wished he could let go of the wary edge he always felt on, and just bask in the affection Johnny so willingly gave him, take in as much of this as he could for the limited time he had with him.

Doyoung looked up again, and he found a depth in Johnny’s eyes that he had seen growing more and more with each day that passed. Because despite the controlled care with which he held himself, Johnny looked at him in a way that was almost… almost _devoted_.

He blinked himself out of the thought, suddenly frightened. He turned, and dedicated the older a smile, subtly pulling himself out of his reach again.

“My burger’s getting cold,” he commented, excusing himself.

After a while, Johnny was called to duties again. As he followed his form walking away, he felt his shoulders dropping and his muscles relaxing, muscles that he hadn’t even been aware he had been stressing.

Before he was able to attempt to understand his reaction, though, he felt two bodies slumping on each of his sides. He startled, and sitting up straight, he found the last people he thought would willingly come to make him company.

“What are you writing?”

Sooyoung had turned to him, long hair loose and cascading down her shoulder once again, as she waited for his answer. Much like her voice, her face was completely neutral, devoid from the usual fire that he had gotten used to see in her. Her eyes found his, big and serious, and he felt his pulse picking up.

It took Doyoung a couple seconds to understand what she meant.

“I-um. I thought I had told you?”, Doyoung willed a smile on his lips, “I’m writing an article about…”

“You’re prying into fires that happened years ago, you’ve been searching through magazines that don’t exist anymore. You’ve annoyed the town’s deputy mayor into telling you stories about here.” she stated, voice clear and flat, “You’re not writing about tourism.”

Doyoung felt his mouth go dry, and he swallowed out of reflex. Under the scrutiny of her dark eyes, he felt himself growing smaller; for the first time he felt truly intimidated by the girl. His stomach knotted and it was only thanks to a barked laugh on his other side that he was able to pull himself out of the magnetic trance he felt under.

Next to them, Jongin was half sitting on the floor, elbows resting on the log, and a cup in his hand. His gaze seemed fixed on the fire, almost as if he hadn’t been listening to their conversation, but the small pull of a hidden smirk on his lips assured Doyoung the opposite.

Somehow, this made his anxiety grow.

His mind began swimming with excuses, trying to come up with anything that would sound believable, anything that would save the slight positive reputation he had been working on. His hand flew to the necklace, fingers twisting in the chain, as he felt himself running out of options. He found himself empty handed.

With a sigh, he decided to go with the worst. He decided to go with the truth.

“I’m a ghost writer.”, he began, eyes lost on the ground before him, hand tight around the pendant, “I’m writing for someone… He, uh, writes books about… _strange_ traditions around the world.” Doyoung winced.

He knew well the way Shim Changmin would describe them, and strange traditions was far too light. He wrote about stupid, gullible, uncivilized people who held on too strongly to useless beliefs. Doyoung was awfully aware of how offensive his narratives were, and had had his time to grief how powerless he felt about having to comply to them.

“I was sent here to investigate about a cult Neukkdomyeon has. A cult about wolves.”, he finished. His eyes dared to dart back at the girl, only to find her looking at him.

Her face was just as stoic as before, but there was something different in it than before. Her chin was slightly lifted, and under the new nearly hidden shine in her eyes, Doyoung suddenly felt like he was being seized.

“Did you find anything interesting?”, a third voice interrupted, and he felt relief as his eyes found Jongin.

Doyoung dragged himself back on his seat, eager to include the oldest of the three into the conversation, who seemed nothing but amused at the whole thing. He couldn’t quite figure out what exactly had him like that, if it was Sooyoung’s cold sober questioning or his stammered answers.

He sighed, folding himself over his knees, before shaking his head, “No”, he began, and maybe it was the inability to tell anybody else about this, maybe it was all the time he had had it bottled up, all the silence he had had to keep, all the doubts, questions, dead-ends he kept accumulating, but he suddenly found his frustration taking over his voice, and speaking for him.

“It’s like… I don’t know. This should have been easy. Easy. I thought id come to town, ask some people, find some books and be done with it.”, he bit his lip, hidden hands closing into fists, “But everywhere I look, there’s information missing. Everywhere I go, there’s someone glaring me out. I can’t- I can’t find anything solid. And… And even what I do find that’s solid is just too… Too unbelievable to be able to write it down and pass it as what’s really going on.”, he felt himself frown, “It’s like wolves are everywhere… and nowhere at all.”

As soon as he was done with his outburst, he felt the skin of his cheeks heating up. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t what he should have done! If the confession of his lie before didn’t lose him the little trust he had gained, this surely had. There was a deep sense of shame cursing all over him, and the more silent seconds went by, the more poignant it got.

“Huh”, Jongin suddenly let out, as Doyoung was about to speak, “That must suck.”

Doyoung mentally sighed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He couldn’t quite believe that his truth had been so well received like that, especially after fundamentally admitting that he had been using them and the rest of the town for a good story, and that he had been angry at not being able to get it from them.

Yet, for all the negativity and dismissal he had gone through in this town so far, their reaction could have been read as positive. _Too_ positive, in fact. He chose to stay prudently silent instead, as he tried to distract his mind from starting to dread when the other shoe would drop.

As the minutes went by, however, he felt the tension that had built around them melting out, as if the way they had distracted themselves with the dancing flames before them had somehow worked itself on them. There was still this underlying tension in him, this feeling of being on edge, but there was something in the other two that made him feel like this was just a personal experience.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw how Jongin finished up his drink, and began pickling at the plastic cup, now useless, with his fingers. On the other side, Sooyoung seemed deep in thought, but Doyoung found that her usual fire had lit back once again, as those perfect eyebrows frowned the slightest. But he felt like he knew her enough now to know that this was just her pensive face.

After a while, Jongin spoke up again.

“Hey,” he called, and when Doyoung turned at him, his head was rested back, and his eyes were fixed on the sky, on the stars and the deep blue infinite mantle behind them, “Do you know what kind of moon it’s tonight?”

Doyoung frowned, and looked upwards. He tried to not get too distracted by the millions of shimmers of the stars, a sight still so unusual for him. It was like he could see every single one of the millions that existed, under this clear sky. He was sure this was going to be the thing he was going to miss the most.

“Um,” he looked around, finding nothing, just to confirm with himself once again, “New?”

“Yep,” Jongin turned at him and smirked, “So don’t worry, we won’t be howling at it tonight.” Before Doyoung could ask anything, he saw him standing, and brushing off the dirt that had stuck to his denims. He walked up to Sooyoung with a smile, that was only replied with a frown deeper than usual, “Come on, Johnny wants us to help him picking up the camp.”

Sooyoung stood up without another word, and with a last indecipherable glance, she began walking away. Before following her, the man turned to him once again.

“Just enjoy yourself tonight, yeah?”, he winked at him, “Don’t stress.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys. im SO SORRYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!  
> you wouldnt believe how busy i got this last week. mainly because................... im helping write a script for a bit of important instagram series from my country! so yeah, i pressured myslef a lot these last two weeks and had no mental time to write sotw T_T but fret not, starting next week ill be more free so i hope im able to go back to updating like a good author instead of the mess i've been being.  
> now onto the story.............................ah i cant really say ANYTHING. next chapter something is coming . owowowowo. im glad to see you guys liked the interludes too!! ill be replying to all comments these days, apologies for not doing so until now T_T 
> 
> regarding this chapter i just want you guys to think about everyone's actions and reactions and maybe youll understand whats about to happen. maybe. there's one last big reveal! 
> 
> i hope u guys enjoy this and thank u for the comments i appreciate them SOOOOOOOO much you guys have no idea!! love u all !!! <3<3<3


	14. Chapter 14

Doyoung held his arms crossed, closer to his ribs than to his chest, as he saw the fluttering of people going around him putting the last of the things they had brought for the gathering away, more out of apprehension than out of cold. He felt terribly uncomfortable letting the rest do the work as he loitered around and waited despite that being Johnny’s direct order.

Strangely, it truly was not out of cold at all, despite the biting chill that he could feel pinching at his cheeks and nose. Even now that the fire was out he still couldn’t feel its discomfort. It was like his body registered the chilly sensation but couldn’t be bothered, even though he knew himself to suffer a bit too much during winter times.

His train of thought dissipated as his eyes caught Yeri with a bag in her hand, collecting the few crumbled paper napkins and plastic cups that had been left stray all over the place, most likely from people who were too drunk to even remember leaving them. He had been surprised about that, actually, at how respectful people had been about not littering the place. He figured that town’s people were really different than Seoulites.

Behind her his eyes found Sunyoung and Yoonoh stacking up chairs, the few ones that had been brought reserved for the elderly, and placing them in a dirty old blue quad, the old Suzuki sticker on it already ungluing, curling into itself. Yoonoh seemed to be on the same sour mood as before, movements slightly harsher than necessary, but Sunyoung seemed to be ignoring it, as if used to his tantrums.

The only other person who seemed to be in the same position as him, condemned to wait around until everyone was done, was Yunho. The man still had a polite smile on his face as he took sporadic sips from the plastic cup in his hand, finishing his last drink for the night, and for a brief second Doyoung wondered if he had that expression ironed into his face.

It wasn’t that Johnny hadn’t given him any tasks or even an explanation as to why he wasn’t letting him help; he had simply come up to him, touched his cheek, and told him to stay there until they finished. And Doyoung did so without a question, at first, and then out of embarrassment when he realized how easily he had complied. He felt his hands pressing into fists again at the thought, fighting back feeling the shame once again.

“Are you ready?”, he suddenly heard Johnny’s voice asking, excited, appearing out of nowhere.

Doyoung turned to him and let his lips mirror the older’s, as he shrugged, “Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?”

Johnny barked a laugh at his attempt of banter, and reached out to press the back of his neck, affectionate. Doyoung found himself relaxing under the touch, only to tense up seconds later when his eyes found three inquisitive pairs of eyes and a resented one. The second he stared back, though, they all fell and they went back to what they were doing.

Before he could tell if Johnny had realized about that as well he turned and gave a few last instructions, telling them to hurry back home as soon as they finished.

“Doyoung and I will go for a walk,” he announced, and chorus of goodbyes followed, and like that, the hand on his neck began guiding him into the woods.

Doyoung couldn’t help to be reminded of the night they went up to the lake as they walked through the wooden darkness. There was a stark difference between that night and this one, though.

That night, the moon had been so bright that it had been more than enough for them to find their way around, so bright that it had painted every single leaf and bark into silver. Tonight, just like it looked from the outside, the inside of the woods were almost pitch dark. It was like every color around them had been, drained, reduced to pitch black, and the only hint that they had ever existed was the dull highlight that the thick spray of stars above provided.

However, there was another difference this time, and it was, the security of Johnny’s fingers securely tangled between his own, hanging between them, guiding him. It was reassuring, especially with the almost gentlemanly way Johnny kept moving and holding branches for him, making warmth bloom into his chest, spilling slowly like lava from a volcano.

“You don’t seem so scared anymore.” Johnny whispered suddenly, mock and muted glee tinting his voice.

Doyoung stood silent for a second, trying to figure out what the older meant. He kept his eyes downcast, as if he was watching his step until he remembered his lie from earlier. “Oh,” he replied in the same tone, “yes. I guess they aren’t that scary up-close.”

Johnny smiled at him, teeth glowing white under the dim light.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself tonight,” he continued, steps long and decided, “I saw you chatting with Sooyoung and Jongin, too. It’s good that you’re getting on better with them.”

“Yeah…”, he agreed, but found himself slouching, the memory of Sooyoung’s cutting tone back in the bar flashing through his mind, digging her teeth even when he had tried to be polite. “They were nice.” That was not a complete lie.

He felt the his hand tightening around his, tender, for a brief second. “I’m glad.” Johnny repeated.

After a few more minutes they reached the lake, and Doyoung nearly blinked in surprise. 

It was not the same part they had gone to that other night, though. This one was barely inclined, if not at all, with a patch of soft grass that he had felt on some parts of the woods before. The grass was long, devoid of weeds or trees and Doyoung couldn’t help to guess that sitting on it would be pleasantly likely to sitting on a thick blanket.

His eyes traveled to the water as he took some steps forward, leaving Johnny behind. It was dark, darker than he ever thought it was possible for it to be, but at the same time reflecting so many stars that it was like it had diamonds floating all over the surface. Doyoung gasped and turned to the other man, who just smirked at him knowingly.

“You _really_ like this lake, huh?” he let himself fall to the grass, feeling a bubble of something strangely similar to content expanding into him. His eyes wandered to the horizon, undecided wether to stare into the lake or at the sky, finding it hard to detect exactly where the two parted off.

“You do, too.” Johnny replied, falling next to him.

“Is my house over there?” Doyoung asked after a couple minutes of inspection, pointing vaguely to the north-east. The question earned him a smile, almost as if the older was proud that he could recognize the area.

“Bit more to the right,” he corrected, grabbing Doyoung’s hand into his and pointing it at the right direction, “But yeah. You were pretty close, actually.”

He felt a small prideful smile curling his own lips, which he directed at him, earning himself a fond laugh this time. Instead of letting go Johnny pulled his hand into his and intertwined their fingers once again.

His mind drifted to his own thoughts from hours before as he stared to the sight, to his near desperate wish to let himself go and just enjoy the smothering affection that Johnny kept offering him. He found a part of him even wishing he could return the soft touches he gave him at least one quarter as easily as he placed them. He didn’t want to let Johnny think that he wasn’t being reciprocated, he didn’t think it was fair for him.

He jolted, mentally, at that realization. Oh, of course. He didn’t want Johnny to feel he didn’t want him back. This shouldn’t be as surprising as it was. After all, they were some sort of something, whatever it was, something that felt good. 

He let himself fall on his back and squeezed his eyes closed. 

He was going to enjoy this. He wasn’t going to think it hard. He wasn’t going to think about time nor consequences, and he wasn’t going to let his brain ruin this for him. He was going to enjoy this. _He was going to enjoy this_.

Doyoung let his focus fall, instead, on how satisfactory the grass under him felt. Just like he pictured it, it was extremely mushy, almost too comfortable to be actual grass. He let his limbs stretch on it, muscles relaxing as a soft sigh escaped his lips.

After a few seconds, he opened them to Johnny staring into him, amusement and warmth and something a bit darker swimming into his eyes. He felt his own fluttering closed for a second as he saw one of those big hands coming up to his bangs, brushing the messy hair away from his forehead.

“What are you thinking of?”, Johnny asked in a murmur, almost absentmindedly. Doyoung noticed the way his auburn locks fell down his forehead -auburn turned into black by the night- as he inclined himself down to him. He also noticed the thickness of his lips, and the subtle smile they were curving into, and all of that with the look and his heat close to him made him, for a brief second, feel like he was in one of those classical art pictures about passionate lovers.

And he decided he’d allow himself to bask in the feeling.

Doyoung sighed, content, and closed his eyes once again. “That I’m enjoying this.”, he simply replied as he wiggled a little, making himself more comfortable.

He felt Johnny’s hand brushing his hair once again, this time his fingers following the path down his neck down to his collarbones, nails scrapping little paths on his skin. Doyoung felt a delicate shiver run down his spine at the sensation.

“D’you know what I’m thinking of?” he murmured again, not sounding like he wanted an answer. Doyoung hummed in interest anyway. He felt the response on the familiar press of his lips on his.

He felt himself giggle, more out of surprise than anything, and corresponded. But soon, it grew impatient, deeper, the warm push of Johnny’s tongue avid to lick into his mouth. Doyoung clenched his hands on the collar of Johnny’s jacket, willing himself to relax, letting him do whatever he wanted to him like it was his nature. Johnny took the opportunity readily.

Johnny’s weight was readily on his lap, as he climbed on top of him, letting one of his legs fall between his and when Doyoung opened his eyes again, as they parted for breath, he found the deep tint of hunger in the other’s. His lips were barely reddened, shiny with their spit but ready to take more of him.

Doyoung bit his own, took a deep breath to equip himself with courage, and dug his fingers between his locks to pull him close again, willing to give him as much as he wanted. His fingers- warm, as always, warm- began crawling under his jacket, under his shirt, finding the skin right above his hipbone and pressing circles onto it in a way that made the familiar drip of heat begin pooling down his groin.

He moaned, a first loud moan, when Johnny decided to give his lips a rest and began traveling down his neck, and he couldn’t help to squirm, to which the hold he had on his hips strengthened, holding him through it. He let out an embarrassed laugh at that, but when he looked at him he didn’t find any sort of amusement. Johnny’s expression was empty in an almost instinctual way.

The image of a lion stalking his prey came back to his head and his pulse rabbited.

“Johnny?” he let the hand on his head brush down to avoid trying to acknowledge the emotion tingeing his own voice. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t.

At that, the older’s eyes seemed to focus again, losing that savage haze, and it was like he was back into his mind again. He didn’t talk, though, he just formed a smile that was more like a smirk, and his fingers roamed further into his shirt. His touch was light, so light, but the roughened pads of his fingers left a near imperceptible scratch on his skin that made him shiver. He felt his breath leaving him again in a silent sigh, and when his eyes found Johnny’s again, he found himself locked into them.

A couple seconds went by, both unmoving, looking into each other. Johnny was almost completely obscured by the night, his right cheekbone and the hair that hadn’t fallen down his face only illuminated by dim silver, and the white of his teeth contrasted against the dark of his face. They suddenly looked sharper, longer. He looked dangerous. He looked like a predator.

_And I’m the prey._

The thought sent another shiver down his spine, and the prickle of heat was set under his skin.

Doyoung felt his pulse ring on his ears, fast like drums, and the next thing he knew, he was pulling Johnny down, and he was desperate. He wanted his lips on him, his hands on him, his everything on him. He wanted the dig of his teeth, the force of his hands, he wanted to feel him everywhere. He wanted him to lit him on fire. He wanted him to eat him.

He let another moan as he felt him getting to it.

One of his hands landed on his neck, grabbing him from it with no pressure, just to keep him on his place, and another hand, the one that had been holding his weight above him, began working on the buttons of his jeans. Johnny was breathing in pants, as impatient as Doyoung felt, and it was only a relief when he felt his lips on him again.

“Johnny…”, he found himself calling, eyes falling closed once again as soon as he felt that rough hand massaging his hardening cock over his pants, “Johnny, please…”

The hand pulled down his pants even more and now that he was touching him for real, skin to skin, his back curled in pleasure. Another moan, and he felt almost possessed. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak. He could only let himself be done.

Johnny let his hand tug at him once, twice, thrice, before he was (embarrassingly) fully hard, and then, he felt his pant sliding down further. Some part of him, a muted, far part, recognized the slight dampness of the grass directly against the skin of his exposed back, but he was unbothered, busier on the feeling of Johnny’s fingers kneading his ass.

Suddenly, the touch disappeared for what seemed ages, but when it came back, it was wet and warm and his legs were suddenly placed on his shoulders, giving him a better angle to tease his rim.

Johnny’s name began falling from his lips like a prayer. He distantly felt the burn of the stretch of the first finger, then the second and before he knew it he was taking three fingers and ready for more. In his deliriousness, he must have missed the pain from the preparation, even though he could feel the pleasant heat of it all the same.

His whole body was boiling, he needed more, more, and when Johnny’s fingers abandoned him, he almost let out a sob.

He stretched to stare into those eyes, once again lost in their instinct, but this time it was okay because his own eyes were mirroring them. And as he stared into their darkness, pupils full blown, almost defiantly, he finally entered him.

Doyoung tensed as he felt the intrusion, but the second he felt all of his size in him, his body melted at the sensation. He felt full. He felt so full. It was like a part of him he didn’t know he missed, the final piece of a puzzle. Johnny’s thumb caressed his pulse once again, the other hand securing itself back on his hip, as he began moving.

Doyoung felt his body squirming and twisting, hands twitching to do something other than holding onto him, but he just couldn’t do anything else other than let himself be fucked, the skim of Johnny’s cock into him leaving his mind blank once again. He moaned his name like a chant until he found his mouth being suddenly busy again with the others’, as the pace began turning ferocious.

He sobbed against his lips until they were abandoned, Johnny’s now trailing down to his neck anew. Doyoung found the sky between his half lidded eyes, and a delirious part of himself noticed the splash of stars once again, the weight of the pendant rolling between his collarbones, the pinch of the cold against his hot skin.

He felt Johnny’s lips trailing down the skin of his neck, almost numb from all the roughing from before, until they settled on a point.

And then, he felt a bite.

Doyoung let out a breathless laugh at the feeling of the teeth, unfeeling of any pain, and that laugh turned into a long, deep moan as his hips snapped particularly hard into him, the pace suddenly changing once again, finding a different spot to hit. He dragged himself out almost slowly, teeth still dug into him, and back in in a ram, hitting the spot once again.

Doyoung felt himself getting closer to the edge, helpless against Johnny’s delicious pace, but before he could even try to say anything, the hand on his throat released him and trailed to his neglected dick. The teeth released him, and Johnny’s hot tongue licked his neck, before lifting himself and working them both into their orgasm.

Seconds later Doyoung’s body began heating up, heating up like never before, and he felt his muscles twisting. A hot, wet sensation started dripping down his neck, into his collarbone, and his hand lifted feel it for a second, without thinking, only to curl around Johnny’s neck the next. He felt himself getting louder, louder as he approached his orgasm, just there, just there and then…! 

He heard Johnny groaning as he came, and his orgasm hit him almost the exact second he did. 

His mind was fogged. His body was still twitching, muscles hunching in presses. And he felt suddenly, extremely, bone-deeply tired. His eyes weighted tons. He needed some rest _now_.

The last thing he remembered was the stars, the fire, dimmed, under his skin, and his hair being petted.

And his hand lifting to his eyes and red, red wetting his fingers.

First on a haze, then on a startle, he woke up.

There was light. There was soft fabric under him. There was the sky, bright blue, but first, trees, but first, a bird flying in front of them, but first, the glass of a window. He could see it there, even if it was clear, because of the dust specs that tainted it.

And then, there was noise. There was always noise, actually, but now he was paying attention to it. There was the bird outside. There was someone in his kitchen. There was a car passing by, outside. There was the beating of his own heart, quickening, alert.

He felt his fingers gripping the sheets underneath him, as he pressed his eyes closed, and began willing his heart to calm down as he came back to reason.

Doyoung breathed in, and out, and in and out, and in and out, and he began thinking again.

He was in his house, in his bedroom, under his sheets. There was no need to panic. The light from the sun outside was making his room clear. The lack of extra noises were making all the other ones twice louder.

Everything was fine.

He felt fine.

Doyoung took a second to feel his muscles, eyes opening slowly. There was a distant soreness in them, as if he had done exercise a few days ago, but it was nothing too bad. It was a pleasant soreness. A soreness that reminded him what he had done the night before.

There was a reminder of it in the chill that ran down his spine at the memory of feeling full. And there was a blush and a small smile on his lips too.

He felt more than fine. 

And that’s what he repeated to himself once again when his mind tried to begin working out what that foreign feeling under his skin was, like a strange, slow stir crawling in his muscles, his guts, his blood-

He shook his head. 

No. 

He felt fine. He was fine. And he was not going to let himself ruin this anymore.

Doyoung gave himself another moment before finally getting up from bed and starting the day. He stretched, now standing, and let out a sigh as his muscles complained faintly, and made his way into the bathroom, wondering dimly if Johnny had cleaned him up when they got home.

He climbed into the shower after taking off the necklace _still_ hanging from his neck, (the only thing he had been wearing aside his boxers) and fifteen minutes later out of it, steam thick inside the small room. The fruity smell of his shampoo climbed down his nose, and it somehow woke up his stomach. He was ravenous, actually, and if he had heard well, Johnny was probably downstairs cooking something up.

He cleaned up the fog on his mirror and began brushing his teeth, as he examined himself. He looked pale, as always, but the heat of the water had flushed up his cheekbones and his shoulders, making him come alive. His eye-bags seemed less profound, as well, most likely thanks to the deep slumber he had fallen into after the fact. And when his eyes traveled down he found something else.

Between his neck and his shoulder, a mark. A mark of teeth.

He let go of the toothbrush to touch it, cheeks heating up. Right. Johnny had bitten him.

And then, a memory flashed on his mind like lightning. His fingers, wet in red after touching it, shining under the dull night.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on their roots, but he laughed at himself.

 _Impossible_ , he thought, _this is a mark, not a scar_. _It couldn’t have healed overnight._

The mark looked more like a bruise, the only way he could actually tell it was made by teeth was the shape, a distinctive half moon in purples and pinks contrasting against his skin. If he touched it, it was painful but not unbearably so; it was only a bruise, no sign of a wound.

Another memory came to him; Johnny, and the way he had looked at him, with those instinct-clouded eyes. He remembered the way he had sunk down his neck, and for just a second, he was remembered of one of his nightmares.

The wolf eating his heart. The wolf that had turned into a man. The man that had sunk to keep taking more the same way Johnny had sunk into him.

He pulled the brush off of his mouth, cursing at himself as he felt the freak out trying to take over his body again, fighting to make his pulse rise. 

It was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare. And the blood in his hand had also been a nightmare. Like the wolf l-turning-man. And the sharpness in Johnny’s teeth.

“Fuck…”, he whispered at himself, and he spat the minty foam in his mouth. “Fuck.”. 

His hands were tugging at his hair now, frustrated. His eyes found his reflection and glared at it. He looked like a mad man.

“It was just a nightmare.”, he told himself, patting the hair down again, resolute. “Just a nightmare.”

He decided to waste no more time over-thinking. He was hungry. He was nervous. He was fine.

He was not going to let his brain ruin this for him.

“Did you carry me all the way here last night?”

Johnny looked up and smiled. “I’m pretty strong.”

Doyoung felt his shoulders relax at his mocking tone and let out a small awkward laugh as he walked up to him, up to the kitchen counter. He was surprised when he found lunch food being made, raw seasoned meat cut into tiny pieces waiting to be cooked, rice, kimchi, egg, nameol and even fish-cakes ready to be served. 

“Mom brought the fish cakes earlier” Johnny said, still smiling, as Doyoung stared in awe, “So I can’t credit myself for that. The rest is all me.”

“What time is it?”, he asked, and he felt his stomach growl. And then, his eyes widened in horror, “Wait, you told your mom we…?”

Johnny laughed, and finally circled his arms around his waist, pulling him in as if he had been resisting doing it for too long. Doyoung felt his nose digging between the damp locks of hair that reached up to his neck, breathing in, before he spoke again.

“It’s half past one”, he sounded delighted, and Doyoung found himself fighting his mortification as he realized that Johnny was delighted that he woke up that late _thanks to him_ , “And it’s not like I’m sixteen anymore…”

Doyoung clawed at the arms around his waist. “You told her!?”

“What if I did?”, he teased, breathing in deep once again against the side of his neck, leaving a soft kiss.

“I-“ Doyoung felt himself starting to splutter, trying to come up with an actual reason, “I mean- it’s not like… But, you know…”

The older turned him between his arms, and he was trapped between the counter and his hips, and he found himself under a mocking deadpan stare. 

“I didn’t tell her, dummy. She just assumed I stayed over.” Johnny shrugged, but, ah. There it was again, that unrestricted affection directed at him, “You wanna eat or not?”

Doyoung let his eyes open wide comically and nodded frantically, and Johnny laughed once again, as he let him go.

They set the table and sat down to eat. Doyoung found himself throwing shy looks at the man in front of him and looking down as soon as he found his eyes on him, stupidly feeling like a teenager in love. There was a strange normalcy to the situation, a tension that was gone from him, or from them, a tension he hadn’t even been sure it existed before. 

But then, he saw Johnny’s shoulders tensing up.

And three clear knocks sounding from the entrance.

Doyoung frowned and stood up, leaving his chopsticks on the table, swallowing what he had in his mouth and hurrying to the front door, pulling it open.

He felt himself gasp.

“Hi.”

He knew that face.

He knew those eyes, he knew that voice. But it was the unfamiliar angry glare in them, and the startling gnarl in it that sent his heart into a dash.

And yet, at the same time he felt relief, so much relief his knees went a little weak.

“J-Jeno…?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like most likely, in a couple months ill come back to this chapter and ill be like 'what the fuck is going on in here on this day?'. you guys. writing this one was SO HARD. doyoung's feelings are getting so complicated!  
> so............................................. yall guess whats going on or not...? hmm?? hmm??? if not, dont worry. doyoung doesnt know either. hehe :-)  
> and !! baby jeno is here again!!! finally!!!!!!!! i missed him so much <3 he truly is my baby. i love him. 
> 
> sorry this authors note is all over the place its 6am and no i didnt just woke up. i never went to sleep instead. ill most likely rewrite it tomorrow LMFAO.
> 
> on a sad note i must tell u guys that ill be taking a break until august 15ish! sorry! im presenting my thesis so wish me luck on that too!  
> i hope u guys liked this chapter hehe. and if you didnt hey at least johndo got laid, right?  
> i love you guyss sooo muchhh thank you for your kuddos comments and supporrrtttttttttttttttttt <3 see u in a bit over a month! <3
> 
> pd: can u guess what the necklace was for?


	15. Chapter 15

It was like a wave washing down him, from his head to the rest of his body, numbing, the relief of seeing the younger again. It was like a red light dimming down, a soothing chant of _he’s safe, he’s home, he’s safe_ into his head. That was what most of Doyoung felt.

There was another part of him though, that voice that dug like a splinter into the back of his brain, that voice that kept nagging at him at all times, that commanded his eyes along the boy’s figure. That voice that now was alerting him, telling him _something changed, something’s going on_ , even weakly dimmed by his dizzying relief.

 _Something’s different_.

This Jeno, the one before him, the one that kept saying-- growling, something that Doyoung could barely register, was a far cry from the one he knew. The boy he knew was just above skin and bones, with arms that seemed inexistent underneath his big hoodies, with shoulders shrunk into himself, as if the world was ready to strike him at any given time. The boy he knew had eyes like a puppy that had learnt to behave through bites, with the constant hint of fear behind them and the politeness upfront.

The boy he knew was not the man in front of him, a young man with a prideful chest and angered eyes. He seemed bigger, shoulders wider, muscles stronger, a body that somehow fitted the manly jaw-line and sharp cheekbones he had always had. It was like he had been born to develop like this, to stand tall and intimidating.

The dominant part in Doyoung preened, like he had grown him himself, and accepted the change with pride. The splinter couldn’t help to notice that that change had happened exactly in the three weeks he had been gone. 

A crack brought him out of his thoughts in a flash, and when his eyes found the source of the sound, the alarm set itself off again. It had been Jeno, with his fingers, denting the wooden doorframe.

“You _did it_.” 

Doyoung searched into the young man’s face for a meaning, confused. What did he mean? He did what? But as he found his eyes, he realized he wasn’t looking at him but _pass_ him. That hot anger wasn’t ready to boil _him_. The venom in his voice wasn’t for _his ears_. The accusation wasn’t directed at _him_. 

It was for _Johnny_.

Doyoung turned around in shock, finding the older staring back into Jeno, gaze heavy and serious, almost a glare, but his lips were pressed closed in a fine line. There was tension lining his body, shoulders hunched, legs apart, almost as if he was ready to attack, and Doyoung heard his own pulse quickening.

“You did it to him. _You actually did it_!” his voice wasn’t just anger. It was shock, disbelief, repulsion, it was betrayal. It was the recipe to a chemical reaction about to explode. 

“Jeno…” Johnny warned, and his voice, for all it was low, sent a shiver down Doyoung’s spine. He felt his confusion grow in alarming levels, just like the hair in the back of his neck standing on their roots. He just didn’t understand, didn’t get what was the accusation about. What had Johnny done? Whom to? The inside of his head started to beat in pain.

“Leave.”

Doyoung’s attention was back on the younger as he heard a sound leaving his throat. A sound no human should be able to make. A _growl_. 

“Leave?! You want me to leave!?” 

A louder noise cracked the air, and Doyoung’s hands flew to his ears, a shocked scream leaving his throat. Jeno _had torn_ whatever wood had been under his hand before. He had _torn_ the fucking _doorframe._

And then, before Doyoung knew it, Johnny had a hand around the younger’s neck, pushing him against the wall. And he _growled_.

He had Jeno. He had Jeno. He was going to hurt Jeno. Doyoung felt his mind going haywire, red, red, red everywhere. He was going to fucking hurt Jeno. 

He couldn’t let him hurt Jeno.

He didn’t think. Suddenly, he found himself between the two men, heart beating hard and fast like a violent drum, and Johnny stumbling back a step.

It was a less than a second, but Doyoung caught the glint of surprise in Johnny’s gaze before he went back to his glare. Behind him, Jeno kept _growling_. And yet, he felt his own arm reaching back pressing against the younger’s stomach, securing him behind him.

“ _Don’t_ touch him.”

The splinter in his mind noticed those words came out of his own mouth. The rest of him was focused on the man in front of him, on Johnny. On his posture, as if he had been ready to tore Jeno into pieces, and Doyoung felt himself tense, muscles tense, head and heart bombing, as if he was ready to return the favor.

“Doyoung…” 

Doyoung noticed how the older’s gaze softened as he looked at him, voice almost begging, into his own eyes. But he found himself unswayed by it, mind hyper focused on _protect, protect, protect_ , on hiding Jeno behind him, on the _threat_. 

Suddenly, the pain in his head became unbearable. It began digging into him, digging like a stake nailing into his head, and his knees- his knees gave in. And there was fire. There was fire? No. 

He _felt_ fire, a burning heat racing down his veins, reaching all of his muscles, tensing him, and the world began blurring. He heard Jeno yelling his name. He felt Johnny kneeling next to him, cradling him into his arms. He felt his own fingers digging against his forehead, as if trying to drill into his head to try to reach at the pain himself and snatch it out of his system. He heard his own groans of pain. He heard Johnny shushing him.

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

And then, the world faded into black.

He dreamed.

He didn’t have any dreams, though; he couldn’t quite recall enough of each to call them that. They were more like fragments. Images. Short sequences that jumped one into the other in a way that reminded him of midnight TV zapping, just him, the bright light of the screen and a plethora of unconnected scenes passing by his eyes.

His favorite childhood toy. A just born pup. Black. The first time his mother struck his face. Black. Black. Johnny’s warm hand on his. Johnny hugging him after he told his overdramatic childhood sob story. A lamb in the woods. Black. The last good memory with his brother. The lamb, baaing scared and alone. Black. His own hands, on fire. Black. The reporters. Black. Black.

He dreamed a lot.

When Doyoung opened his eyes, barely, eyelids still heavy, he couldn’t focus enough to see the face on top of him. His skin felt sticky, heated, uncomfortable. He wanted to break it off, escape from it, squirming as much as his body allowed him, which was not a lot.

It wasn’t only his eyelids the ones that were heavy, it was his entire self. His limbs weighted tons, sprawled gently on the bed he was on, sheets glued to them by his own sweat. Breathing was an entire combat.

“Hey!”

His eyes focused into the face above, languidly, like a chore. There was an impish smirk, golden skin, raven hair. Distantly, Doyoung wondered if he knew this man. Something told him he did. He took another labored breath, closed his eyes, and let his head fall to the side again.

“No, don’t sleep on me now, Doyoungie.”, the voice complained, an unfamiliar brightness splashing it, “Come here.”

He felt a tug on his chin and he was facing up again, held by fingers he was sure he didn’t know. Then, he felt another tug and his mouth was being opened, just barely, lips separating in a soft smack, making his eyes open in interest again.

And then, a digit sneaked its way into it. 

Mouth full, Doyoung let a complaining sound leave his throat, but his mouth was still busy with the thumb, thumb that was firmly pressing down his tongue. As he began salivating around it, he realized the thumb had some sort of substance coated to it, something that tasted syrupy like sweet potatoes purée, but grainier, earthier, too.

Still, he couldn’t help to lick into the taste, letting his tongue lap at the finger until there was none left.

He saw the smirk on the face above grow, and the finger was dragged out of his mouth almost painfully, pressing down his lip, as if to make sure no paste was left. He felt himself licking his lips after the intrusion was gone.

“That’s a good boy.”, it was said almost cruelly, and he felt a pat on his head, “ _Now_ you can go back to sleep.”

And so he did.

The dreams continued.

The necklace. Johnny guiding him into a cave, inside the cave there was his living room, in the living room there were Johnny’s friends. Black. Sooyoung and Jongin sitting next to him the night of the fire, but now they were two animals, seizing him, and Yeri, also an animal, whining for his caress. Black. Black. Himself, cradling two kids in his arms. Black. Teeth, so many teeth, salivating, smiling, bloody, sharp. Black.

It was a fresh hand pressing on his forehead, lovingly sliding down his cheek what woke him up this time.

Still heavy, his eyelids barely opened to allow him to find a pair of kind eyes looking at him. There was a fondness in them that Doyoung wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of, the fondness of a mother looking at her son, the fondness of tenderness and worry wrapped up, mixed, kneaded and fresh out of the oven, ready to be accepted without hesitation.

Doyoung recognized these eyes, but his mind remained firmly numb, unallowing of any coherent thought to be formed. They were familiar, almost too, but not enough. This analysis, as superficial as it was, ended up being enough to distract him from the hand, small, still softly cupping his face, and the mouth, saying something he couldn’t quite catch.

“H-huh?”, his voice came out barely over a whisper, more whine than anything else, but it made the person above him smile.

“I asked if you were feeling better, dear.”

Ah. He knew who this was.

He took a moment to inspect himself before replying. His blood was not on fire anymore, but the image of lava, slow but relentless, came to his mind when he tried to figure out the feel. His limbs were still heavy, but not out of his control anymore. And the state his mind allowed him to stay in, a state so much alike the seconds between being fully asleep and fully awake, was actually not unpleasant at all.

He let his languid gaze land again on Myoryeon’s face before nodding as much as he could.

“Mmyeah…”, he tried, tongue still sticky with sleep.

The woman smiled at him again, and her fingers were now running through his bangs. Doyoung closed his eyes at the sensation, sighing, and somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought made his eyes start to burn just slightly. He felt contempt. He felt cared for in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He wasn’t awake enough to be fully conscious of this, and he wasn’t awake enough to let tears run down, so he just resolved to sniffle through his stuffed nose a couple times, as Myoryeon began talking to him again. Embarrassingly, he felt a tissue being snuggled around his nose, and he could do nothing but let her help blow his nose.

He couldn’t pick apart the words, “…Johnny…”, he couldn’t catch them all either, “…happy with us…”, but he found himself not caring much for that either. He felt himself drifting back into sleep, “…pack…”, but as the woman blabbed on, she must have noticed, “great wolf...” because he felt his covers being pulled back over his shoulders, carefully, one at a time.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”, he heard her, right before falling back into darkness, “Your body needs it.”

He nodded once again, turning to his side. “Thank you…” , he tried to mumble.

“No, thank _you_.”, she might have said. “Have nice dreams, Doie.”

There was a snake. The snake slithered down thousands of pages, all handwritten, all words Doyoung couldn’t understand, scuttling the ink as it made its way to his hand, extended, reaching, and its jaws kept getting bigger, ready to bite him down. As it bit, it melted into something different. Thousands of bees stood where it was before, dead bees, and he was suddenly in the woods, and his hands were bloody. Black. There was Taeyong, it was his birthday party. His friend was happy, laughing with his other friends. A sinking sensation reemerged in Doyoung’s chest. Black. A warm hug. Black. Black. The stars, as they looked when he was drunk outside the bar. Black. A body. A cup of tea. Black. Scratches on a door.

Doyoung woke up.

“Hey” a voice, low, gentle, called as he opened his eyes. “You woke up.”

Doyoung turned his head to find Johnny sitting next to him, his weight dipping down the bed just slightly. A hand instantly tangled between his locks, and he winced, somewhat aware that he must have looked like a mess, but his mind chose to worry on observing the man instead.

“Yeah,” he replied, mirroring the older’s tone. Johnny replied with a sidelong look, and a small smile tugging at his lips, and turned back to his work.

As he saw him fiddling with something, his senses began getting distantly aware of his state. His muscles felt sore, heated, and there was a pressure on his head. _Fever_ , his brain instantly provided, _you have a fever_.

With the realization, a shiver ran down, and he found himself burying himself further into the covers, and let himself lay inert, eyes vacantly looking at the man.

“You still cold, huh?”, he began, leaving something on the table and turning fully to him, “Your fever’s still high.” Doyoung’s eyes moved to his face, finding the most mellow look in his eyes as he looked at him. It lacked the intensity they usually held, somehow, or maybe he was still far too tired to process properly. “Here, let me sit you up. Let’s get some water in you and you can go back to sleep.”

Doyoung nodded slowly, letting the man slide his arms around him, lifting his weight into a sitting position, letting a sigh as he felt the contact. Johnny felt warm, more than warm, and wherever he touched him, it felt like a muscle that had been clenched for long relaxing. Johnny fixed his position, going as far to make his own hands rest on his lap, and Doyoung just let him, feeling more like a doll than a human.

Sat down like that, he felt the real weight of his fever, head suddenly spinning and muscles whining to back to rest. A glass was placed on his lips, and he allowed the liquid in automatically, but it was only after swallowing that he realized how actually thirsty he was. After just some seconds, he was done and the older was already filling it back, this time Doyoung enthusiastically taking it despite the new chill making its way down his neck.

Now empty and Doyoung’s thirst satiated, he felt the older taking the glass and instead bringing a spoon to his mouth. Doyoung took it, eyebrows knotting at the content.

It was a greenish paste, scent barely earthy, like someone took random winter leaves and crushed them into tea.

“What’s this?”

“Just some medicine,” the older took back the spoon and pushed it to his lips, patient, “Old people remedies and all that.”, Doyoung let it in, eyeing him with just the faintest suspicion, “Gonna make you feel all good again. Next time you wake up you’ll be all done, promise.”

As it hit his tongue, the flavor instantly rang a bell, but he couldn’t remember from where. It was syrupy, almost like sweet potatoes. But it had something else, some bits and pieces of other ingredients Doyoung couldn’t recognize. Some of it stuck on the roof of his mouth, and he was left to ease it by smacking his tongue against it.

He found Johnny looking at him with some humor as he did it, and he replied with a weak glare, glare that was cut short as he reached out again, and his calloused thumb ran down his cheekbone, making him sigh again, this time only in his mind. It was like it put him at ease, the feel of his skin on his skin, like something was back in place, like his body demanded to feel safe under his touch.

He felt too tired to analyze how that made him feel.

Before he could protest, he found himself being pushed back into the bed and the covers being well arranged over him, covering him up to his nose. He felt cozy, pleasantly sleepy once again, and the shivers finally dying down. Johnny’s hand went back to his head, petting him once again.

“Rest up, Doie.”, he last heard Johnny said, “It’s almost all up.”

He found himself worming up to him, to his heat and safety. Finally, he fell into the darkness once again.

Doyoung opened his eyes and saw his ceiling.

His eyes began examining it, weirdly entranced, as the rest of his senses took in the rest of the room. The wood on the roof had circles, some thinner, some thicker, and it smelled like food coming from downstairs, and he was hungry, really hungry. There was a set of three or four tiles that seemed newer than the rest, a clearer color, and there were two voices in his living room, female ones, one of them was Sooyoung. There was a car passing by on his street. There was an owl outside.

There was a howl, and the hairs on his arms stood on their ends.

His heartbeat picked up; suddenly, he was on his feet, reaching for the window. Was it a wolf? One of the godforsaken wolves he kept trying to find? He felt the abrupt need of going outside, going to find it, going to see what was going on. His fingers, almost shaky, went to unlock the window and then-

“Doyoung?”

Sooyoung’s voice called him from downstairs.

“Doyoung,” she called again, after a silent moment, “are you awake?”

Doyoung found himself blinking, looking at his hands for the first time, seeing them shaking, and he frowned, confused. He lowered them and stepped away from the window, finding his body winding back down, walking back to the bed and turning on the night lamp.

“Yeah”, he called back weakly, more distracted than he was limp. Actually, he didn’t feel debilitated at all. He felt his bones strong, muscles relaxed. The fog that had been plaguing Doyoung every time he woke up was almost all gone, clearing up more and more by the minute. He felt full of energy, just like after a good night’s sleep. He felt good. He felt really good.

Looking down, he found his legs naked, only a pair of briefs on, and immediately stood up to get himself presentable. It was dark outside, he stipulated it was somewhere between nine and eleven p.m. and suddenly, he felt sorry for the girls downstairs. It was really late.

He put on his pajama pants and his sleeping shirt before walking down the noisy stairs. Maybe it was because he hadn’t had an excuse to turn on many of his living room lights before, since his routine had been consisting of either watching old VHS after old VHS in the dark or (admittedly less) working on his laptop in the office until he felt tired enough to go to bed, but he found himself admiring the orangey glow that the room turned into under them. It made the room feel smaller, cozier if not a little antique, the wood on his walls lazily reflecting the shadows the lights created. Doyoung couldn’t say he disliked the feel. Coupled with the strong smell of a full flavored stew, the warm air inside the house and some other smell he couldn’t quite place his finger on, the house felt nice. Homey.

It was the strangest thing so far.

He found the girls, Sooyoung and Sunyoung, sitting on his couch, chatting in whispers with each other, as if to not disrupt the night. As he walked up to them, they turned to him, looking every bit like they belonged there, like being on his couch, in his house, showing up uninvited was something they just did. Doyoung found that he didn’t quite mind it as much as he was stunned by it.

Sooyoung’s eyes traveled up and down his frame, so much alike the night of the fire that it brought the memory right up the front of his brain, but this time the feel was different. It was more analyzing, as if he was checking up on him. Her eyes had no burning fire in them, just a somewhat cautious glint, and somehow still accomplished to look worried behind that.

“Hi”, he managed, lamely, suddenly feeling the weight of the responsibility as the host of the house. He supposed he had already proven himself an awful one, coming up to his guests in pajamas, completely unarmed to attend to them. He felt somewhat awful about that, and he felt worse because the obligatory question right after was, “Um, why-?”

“Johnny’s still busy with work.” Sooyoung began, cutting him off and standing up at the same time, her arms firm at her sides but somewhat stiff. Her voice, although still loaded with the usually firmness it had, was much softer, if not a little guarded. “He told us to come wait for you to wake up. I- We made food.”

Doyoung’s eyebrows would have shoot up, he’d have asked more questions, that is, if his attention hadn’t been suddenly picked by the last sentence. God, now that she mentioned it, he was ravenous.

The girl must have picked something in his expression, because she continued, “It’s gamjatang.”. He swallowed, and her sight fell a little. “Do you like it?”

Doyoung found himself looking into her eyes for a second, looking at her overwhelmed by an emotion he couldn’t figure out, something like contentment, comfort and confusion. He realized the sensation she was giving off now.

It was like she was walking on eggshells. She was walking on eggshells because of _him_.

“Y-yes!”, he hurried to reassure, unwilling to make the girl feel like that any longer. “I really like it. It- it smells great. Can’t wait to eat.”

She looked up again, and now it was her time to look weirded out, a thin eyebrow quirking at his overenthusiastic response. The _sassyness_ of it made him let out a weird laugh.

The moment was cut short as he got distracted by the movement behind her. Sunyoung, who had been silently watching the interaction, stood up and announced she’d be leaving in a firm voice. Doyoung found himself surprised at her as well, shocked to find a guardedness that was more similar to the way Sooyoung had always shown him than the indifference she usually carried with herself. 

Nevertheless, he didn’t object, instead walking her to the door. Doyoung expected the younger girl to follow her, but instead found her gazing at her friend with a slight disapproving look. The woman left without many other words, leaving him somewhat tense, like he had just had a confrontation.

Before he could say anything, as he turned back to Sooyoung, she said:

“You smell like sweat. Go take- I mean...”, she stopped herself, stunned for less than a second, before continuing, the eggshells under her heels seemingly nearly breaking for some reason, “I can warm the stew up while you shower. If you want to take a shower.”

Doyoung felt his face heating up, embarrassed, realizing he must have smelled awfully if it was bad enough to have her smell it from so far. He wondered why he hadn’t smelled it himself, but perhaps his nose was still a bit clogged from the… the… whatever had had him in bed for who knows how long.

Instead, he nodded and hurried up the stairs and into the bathroom, his stomach protesting at his politeness.

He was quick to discard his clothes, feeling the heat of the vapor filtering through his nose, and he realized just then how actually sticky his skin felt. He really felt uncomfortable at the sensation, almost feeling the beginning of an itch coming up at him, and he decided that he couldn’t wait the few minutes it took the water to heat up, opting to just dip under the spray right away.

Instead, he found himself enjoying the cold water running down him, hair dampening, muscles taking in the pressure of the water, and he sighed. This felt good. This felt really good, and it was like it wasn’t until now that he felt fully awake, with the water slowly building up heat, crashing against his form.

The smell of his soap felt extremely strong, but not unpleasant, as he scrubbed it on his skin. Floral, woody spiciness invaded his senses and he relished on the smell, as he slowly began feeling the disgusting stickiness dissolving away.

He brushed down his arms, his neck, and he found his hands feeling less softness than he usually felt when scrubbing himself. He worried for a second, wondering if he had lost so much weight due the sickness that the little fat he had had left. If that was the case, he could understand why Sooyoung looked so thrown by him. He must have looked like a zombie, or some other supernatural beast.

He opted to dress back into pajamas, although new ones, and just quickly dry his hair to the best of his towel’s capacity before walking back down. 

He felt strangely young, fresh out of the shower in his pajamas, a meal waiting for him on the table, a big bowl full to the rim. It felt strangely filial, as the girl eyed him with nag in her eyes, like a mother telling him to better finish his food or else.

Somehow, it didn’t feel aggravating. Sooyoung had cooked for him. She had sent him for a shower, and now she was making sure he’d eat back to health. Sooyoung, who had spent the last two months openly antagonizing him.

It felt heartwarming.

He replied with a small grateful smile, to which she scowled, and just for a second, he let himself wonder if this was what it felt like to have sister, someone close to him watching over him. 

He heard the chair on the other side of the table moving as he picked up his cutlery, as she sat in front of him, and without a word, began eating. Doyoung began doing the same, slightly intimidated by the portion for the first time, as he realizes just how big it was while stirring it, wondering if he was going to be able to eat half of it. Still, as he picked some meat and put it in his mouth, he found the indubitable taste of homemade, of knife-cut and season-to-taste in it. It tasted like home.

“This is great,” he complimented, right away, and he saw the girl’s shoulders untensing slightly, as she barely dedicated him a glance. “You’re a great cook.”

“Sunyoung helped.”, she simply replied, making herself slightly smaller, and just then, Doyoung understood. She didn’t just sound cautious, she sounded like someone who was sorry. Like someone who had screwed up, yet wanted to make peace. Like her walls were trying to come down. Doyoung found himself willing to help.

“You both are great cooks,” he tried to make his voice as conciliatory as he could. “You should teach me, sometime.”

The girl looked up, big eyes still a bit cautious, and nodded seriously. Doyoung smiled a little at her.

He continued eating, and his mind began wandering to all of the bits of conscience he remembered. It was more like images, very similar to his dreams, except he knew he had been awake for those because he could remember the heat under his skin for all of them. And the medicine, the taste of that sweetly disgusting paste wouldn’t leave his memory any soon. But even if he tried, he just couldn’t figure out the timeline. The last thing he remembered was Jeno- Jeno!

Jeno and Johnny fighting! And him getting between them!

“Jeno’s okay, right?”

The words left his mouth before he could stop them, but Sooyoung remained unfazed, as she chewed.

“Yeah,” she dismissed, “He’s actually visited a couple times. Not a lot, though.”

“Are him and Johnny still…?”

“Yeah”, she nodded again, this time with a not so subtle eye-roll, “That’s why he couldn’t visit more.” Doyoung found himself slightly scowling at that. Jeno was a teen, after all. Whatever it had been about, Johnny should be the bigger person- “It’s his fault, anyway.” he frowned, confused, but she kept going, “You don’t fight the- Johnny.”

Doyoung dropped his chopsticks.

“Why not?”

His question felt like an arrow.

He observed as Sooyoung took her time chewing whatever was in her mouth, eyes drifting down again. He waited patiently as she took a sip of the glass in front of her, and patted her lips, before looking at him.

“I mean,“ she began, something different in her that Doyoung couldn’t quite point out, “have you seen him? He’s huge. You just don’t fight him. You don’t.”

Doyoung felt a waterfall of questions and links about to form in his mind, but almost as if she could sense them forming too, she spoke up again.

“Anyway, you should keep eating, your body needs the nutrients. You’ve been out for almost a week, did you know?”

This halted every thought about to form.

“Almost a week…?”

“Six days.”, she replied, and pointed at his plate. He nodded, absentmindedly picking his chopsticks, feeling his attention long gone. He was back into his mind, fully dunk into his own thoughts.

Six days. By the time he had gone to the bonfire, he had two weeks left in Neukddomyeon. It had been a Sunday. So today it had to be a Friday, and he had-

He had eight days left to finish it all.

He felt a sudden rush invading him, making his blood run faster than a bullet. He stood up, and his legs made him scramble towards his room, to his bed table, to his black notebook. He took it, almost crazed, as he heard Sooyoung calling him. He needed to calm down. He needed to calm down.

Doyoung breathed in and out, letting himself relax.

He needed to calm down.

He only had a few more places to go, he saw in his notebook, as he walked down the stairs back into the kitchen. He _had_ information, maybe not conclusive, maybe not all of what he wanted to know. But he had a lot. Worst case scenario, he could just try to fit the puzzle later, after he was done.

He sat back into the chair, notebook on the table, one hand flipping over the pages almost obsessively, and the other back to the chopsticks. The college. The school. The police station?

No. The cemetery. He needed to go to the cemetery. Something in his gut told him he needed to go there.

The noise of the front door opening pulled him out of his thoughts.

He turned around and he found Johnny, eyebrows raised, lips pulled into a big smile, walking up to him.

“Hey”, he almost whispered, a gleeful shine illuminating his eyes as they looked down at him. Doyoung found his attention pulled to him for a hot minute, as the calloused hand slid down his cheek, cupping it in a familiar way, “You’re up!”

Doyoung nodded into his hand, allowing himself a second to analyze the older. He looked just like always, auburn hair slightly long, shiny. Caramel skin, warm. Plump lips, inviting. This familiarity settled something in him, something that had felt a lot like a horse trying to let lose, but now felt more like a resting deer, calm but alert.

“You feeling okay?”, Johnny asked, the slightest frown in his eyebrows, “Your fever’s gone, isn’t it?”

Doyoung made an agreeing sound, “I feel great. Just- just well rested. Excited to go back to work.” Johnny opened his mouth, as if about to protest, but Doyoung quickly continued. “Sooyoung and Sunyoung took good care of me, made a great gamjatang. Do you-“, he turned to the girl, who seemed caught by surprise, “Do you think there’s enough for Johnny, too?”

She stood up, instantly, nodding, “Of course.” 

The smile in his lips didn’t falter, but somehow, something in Johnny’s eyes changed. He left one last soft touch around his cheekbone, and went to grab his cutlery, as Sooyoung left another big bowl next to Doyoung’s.

As they all went back to eating (and he found himself surprised because- yes, he was actually about to finish his entire bowl and didn’t even feel half full), he felt a hand sneaking over his thigh. The touch was warm, somehow not really sexual, but more reassuring. Johnny was here. He was next to him.

It still made his heartbeat pick up.

“So,” Sooyoung began, almost forcibly conversationally, as she stood up with her empty bowl, “d’you already know where you’re going next?”

Doyoung swallowed, and forced himself to shrug. He suddenly felt under the spotlight, like a cop was pointing a flashlight at him. “Not really.” he lightly said, “Maybe that college?”

He didn’t know why he had just lied.

“Oh,”, Johnny raised his eyebrows, “I can take you.”

Doyoung had to force his eyes from widening.

“A-actually,”, he let his eyes focus on his spoon, as he scrapped the last bits of the stew remaining in his dish, “I kind of…feel like walking. Um, after being laying down for so much time, and all.”

Johnny seemed to catch the hint then, suddenly laying back lax on his chair, away from him, and hand coming off his leg. Doyoung wanted to go alone, even if he didn’t quite agree with that.

Still, something in him whined as he felt the loss of contact. _God,_ he scolded himself, _it’s just a hand._

“Well”, Sooyoung broke the silence, her voice back to the subtle bouncy mockery, “my babysitting duties are done for the day. You can take care of the dishes for us, yeah, Johnny?”

The older just shrugged, not taking the bait and Doyoung turned to dedicate him a small (sweet, nervous) smile that went unseen, since he seemed too busy looking away. The younger refused to let himself dwell on it, as he stood and walked the girl to the door. He thanked her for the meal and everything else, and for once, as she rolled her eyes with a fast _‘You’re welcome’_ , he felt that maybe they could become friends.

Also, he couldn’t help to notice the new wood piece on his doorframe.

Once he came back to the kitchen, he was mildly surprised at the sight of Johnny actually doing the dishes, flannel rolled up to his elbows, forearms busy with foam and water. Rather than focused, he looked focused on looking focused, which proved right as Doyoung walked up to him and let himself rest against the counter, and he wasn’t spared a glance.

Doyoung crossed his arms, eyes fixed on the floor, as his ears twitched and focused on the occasional clink and slosh going on to his side. The sounds were helping to soothe him somehow, not allowing him to fall into a spiral panic of going over his words, of overanalyzing body language, of wondering whether Johnny had gotten upset with him or not.

He ended up being pulled out of this spiral by a big hand, slightly damp, affectionately pressing on the back of his neck. When he turned, he found Johnny’s eyes looking at him with a tired resignation.

“You not tired yet?”

His eyes fell back to the wooden floor, as he shook his head and let the older pull him closer, conciliatory. He found himself, once again, relaxing under his touch, relaxing a grip on his own shirt he didn’t even know he had been holding.

“We could watch a movie ‘till you are, then.” Johnny suggested, and then followed it with “Since it seems you’ll be having a _busy_ day tomorrow. I wouldn’t know for sure, you know.”

Doyoung’s mind instantly went to Sooyoung’s eye-roll from before.

“I found The Housemaid under a bunch of James Bond ones the other day.”

Johnny’s lips turned up into a small, contained smile.

Doyoung let himself be guided to the couch and laid half down. As his eyes followed Johnny’s shape setting the VHS up, his mind went over his next plans again. Eight days. Four deaths. Two newspapers. One animal attack. Yes, he absolutely needed to go to the cemetery, he needed the information, he needed the _facts_. 

_I hope it’s a busy day_ , he desperately thought, _a_ _busy day_ _on my own._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its almost 4 am so ill leave a proper authors note tomorrow so quick notes right now  
> \- sorry for the LENGTHY absence, long chapter in exchange for your troubles dearest readers  
> \- my thesis went well i graduated so yay  
> \- if you left me a comment in the previous chaptre: thank you i lvo eu so much you have no idea how much i reread those while taking courage to go back to writing after so long  
> \- if you see a grammar/orthographic mistake... no u didnt (ill fix it tomorrow hehe<3)  
> \- i love u i love u i love u aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll wtf over 5k hits what the hell !!!!!!!!!!!!  
> \- mwah mwah mwah this is the author signing out for a lil while <3


	16. Chapter 16

As he set foot in the holy ground, Doyoung began feeling off.

It was like an itch in the back of his neck, an itch that demanded him to stay alert, to stay vigilant. It grew, step by step into the land, as he walked down the cemented path that lead to the burial ground, marked by the ocean of grey tombs that laid there. It told him that something was about to happen. It told him that someone was there. It was warning him.

Doyoung couldn’t help the hysterical laugh that left his lips, as he gripped on the strap of his messenger bag and wondered what was wrong with him. He was alone in the cemetery, there was nobody else but him in a couple miles’ radius. He was entirely too old to believe in ghost stories as well, and so he reminded himself as he swallowed and breathed in, lungs filling with air for courage.

He was alone. No matter what his body was trying to tell him, he was safe and alone.

He carried on his walk.

Neukddomyeon’s cemetery was similar to what Doyoung had always pictured whenever he read about one in a sad story when he was young. As he walked further inside the land, he was able to see just how extensive it was. With jade green grass all over and irregular memorial graves planted evenly all over the main garden, the place made itself known only with a small gate on the outside and a dark, tattered fence surrounding the parts that helped delimit it where the woods that surrounded it failed to. 

Further back, there was a small chapel, also just as old as the fences, but without any indication of belonging to any religion in concrete, at least just from the outside; just a quiet place to honor the dead. Its bricks were browned with age, nearly falling at places, except the ones on the wall that was supported by the building right next to it. With a wild guess, Doyoung assumed that that building was the crematorium and where each family’s ashes’ vault was.

A gust of wind ran through the place, softly, but chilling cold, and Doyoung felt himself shrinking inside his jacket, shoulders tensing as he tried to suppress the shiver that attempted to run down his spine. The day had started cold, sky covered under thick, nearly white clouds that announced that the sun was trapped behind them. They radiated a type of light, though, but it was the type of light that was not strong enough to create any shadows, but fluorescent enough to make every color stand out, almost in a surreal catalogue way. It should have looked cheerful. Instead, he tried to avoid thinking of how much it was alienating him.

He forced himself to ignore the feeling as he kept walking, focusing instead on the smell of humidity in the air, smell that had graced him even as he walked down the highway to where he was now, the same smell that he could even smell from  _ inside _ his home before leaving, smell that was the reason why he had an umbrella hanging from his wrist now. 

There was also even fainter, the smell of something else, something sweet and putrid. It was barely there but if it had been any stronger, Doyoung was sure he’d have his stomach whirling, protesting at it. This, he also chose to ignore.

He stopped right before he reached the end of the path, before the graveyard, and he took a breath once again, willing the ominous feeling he had had since he had woken up to go away, once again. It had been a rough morning, somewhat confusing, as he found himself wandering alone in his own home.

He had expected Johnny to at least insist once again to go with him, to have breakfast with him. He had felt disoriented when he found himself waking up in the early morning due to the soft sounds of the other man leaving the bed and getting ready for the day, as he was more used to the man waking him up when he stayed over. He remembered the way the morning golden bathed his entire room as he saw the way Johnny glanced at him, eyes turning a soft honey yellow under the light, as he mumbled Doyoung to go back to sleep.

He supposed the older was still upset for the previous night, for insisting on continuing his investigation on his own, which was fine. He just didn’t expect that it’d affect him that much, leaving him even having second thoughts, having to talk himself out of just trying to find him and tell him to come along, or even worse, of not going at all.

It was a strange sensation.

The place was divided in four parcels by paths, and there was a fifth one, smaller, in the middle of it all forming an epicenter. Between each grave there was enough space to walk as well, and the stems of winter dying flowers strung out every few ones.

And, oh.

A wolf?

Not a wolf. That wolf. The wolf howling at the moon, the one in the painting in the hall, and in Johnny’s grandma’s plate, except it wasn’t a painting now. It was a statue, a statue in the middle of the epicenter.

Well, at least this simplifies his course of action.

With regained energy, Doyoung began his steps again, firmer this time as he walked down the earth paths to the center. He felt his pulse quickening, not out of fear but excitement this time, sure that there was something here, something key, something he had been missing for way too long.

His pace quickened, and if he had been more calm, he’d have felt disrespectful, but his focus was somewhere else. His eyes ran frenetic over the words carved against the first stone he found himself in front of.

_ Suh Myungja. Beloved mother, sister and daughter. 1889-1945. _

Doyoung felt the rush leaving his body at the words. There were dozens, even hundreds of tombs. Information wasn’t going to jump at him, most likely it would hide and disguise itself from him like it had done in his entire stay. He needed to calm down and analize. He needed to-

_ May you find peace under the Moon’s embrace. _

Doyoung frowned. What a strange thing to write in an epitaph.

He walked up to the one behind it.

_ Suh Sunghoon. Brave warrior and brother. 1901-1978. _

_ The Moon will thank you. _

Another Suh. Another reference to the moon.

Doyoung’s frown deepened, and he kept walking. Soon, he realized that all the graves surrounding the wolf were Suh’s. And not all of them, but enough of them for it to be just a coincidence made some sort of reference to the moon in the message they wanted to pass on. He whipped his head around, looking for the next grave that would call his attention. Now if he could-

Doyoung’s eyebrows rose at the new name.

_ Jung Jinho. _

A Jung?

He let his eyes fall on the next closest stone and in that one as well, he could distinguish the Jung carved there. And on the one next to it. And on the one next to that one, as well.

He turned around, almost cartoonishly, as it dawned on him. Oh, of course. There were  _ two _ founding families in the town, of course their remains would be laid to rest in the middle of the cementry together.

Doyoung thought about the fact that they were sharing the center, yet still divided, but filed it for later. He could look into it when he went home. Right now, he felt like a dog about to find the bone.

He was wandering fully into the Jung territory, when his senses came back into alertness. 

The strange sensation of not being alone itched back under his skin. He stopped himself, almost tripping over his feet, at the strength it came back with. What was just an uncomfortable buzz before, now felt more like an electricity running up and down his arms, his legs, telling him to be alert, stay alert, there's something there, there’s something near. It was a tension in his muscles, and the faintest, the faintest low sound reaching his ears.

_ Come on, _ he scolded himself,  _ nothing’s going on _ .  _ Keep walking _ . And he obliged, no matter how insecure the voice in his mind had sounded.

He walked across the tombs.  _ Jung Joongsuk. Jung Yoonsoo. Blessed by the Moon, in life and death. Jung Jooeun. _

The hairs on his arms stood on their roots. The sound was getting louder.

_ Jung Jinseong. Jung Yeonseong. We will reunite under the Moon once again. _

It got louder, louder and distinguishable. He was sure what it was now. He had heard that sound before.

_ Jung Hyeonjeong. The Moon will ward you. _

He felt his breath catch in his throat, refusing to come out, almost suffocating him, and the sound was clear. It was so clear that it wasn’t just a sound.

It was a growl.

_ Clank! _

Doyoung jumped on his skin and turned at the same time, as the sound of a bicycle coming to a halt irrupted the peace of the holy place. He felt all the tension leave his limbs, as a pair of familiar teens came into his vision.

“Yeri? Jeno?”

He followed the kids, heart pounding on his chest out of fright, as they got down the bicycle. Jeno inclined the thing as he waited for the girl to jump down the back before getting down himself, letting it fall carelessly on the grass. They were far, nearly halfway the path before the main land, but sooner than he expected they had gotten close enough for him to repeat their names without yelling, breaths puffing ever so slightly from the small trot.

Doyoung frowned, “What are you two doing here?”. He couldn’t help the spark of suspicion that tried to ignite in him, having to quickly remind himself that he hadn’t told anybody where he was actually going that morning. Nobody knew him enough in the town to stop for a chat, nobody had looked at him twice as he made his way to the highway to walk the rest of the way, not for the over an hour through the town nor the resting two until reaching the place. It was impossible for them to know.

Before he could get another word, though, he found himself with two handfuls of teens limbs nearly suffocating him. His eyes opened big, shocked, but for some reason the tension he had holding before melted away completely, and his arms acted on their own as he hugged them back and patted their shoulders and heads to the best of his ability. It should have been more awkward than it had ended up being, but for some reason, it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all.

After a few seconds, both teens pulled away, and Jeno’s lips were curled into a kind smile. Yeri, on the other hand, had a certain tension to herself, eyes subtly shifting all over the place. Somewhere in the back of his mind Doyoung wondered if that was just her default mode, guarded, alert, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I came to see my parents”, Jeno said, and Doyoung’s heart instantly dropped. His eyes shifted to the boy, and he tried to swallow the burning empty that was suddenly possessing his throat, the noise from before completely erased both from his ears and his mind. “Yeri’s making me company.”

It wasn’t only the terrible meaning of that, that Jeno had had both of his parents pass away, what had upset him, but also the simplicity with which he said it. It was a simplicity that only comes with a resignation that takes years and years to come to. 

“Oh.”, he could only reply, and there was a sudden guilt for having doubted the teens’ intentions for even a second paining in his chest. That and the grief that was choking him must have been plain on his face, since Jeno’s eyes turned kind, pitying, the way Doyoung should be looking at him. “Okay.”

Jeno pressed his lips into another gentle smile before nodding and wandering off to one of the squares. Next to him, Yeri remained, as if unsure of what to do. Her discomfort was almost touchable.

“I’m sure Jeno won’t mind you waiting for him next to his bike”, he offered, trying to force a gentle tone through the lump in his throat, “And I’ll be taking some time longer, too.”

Yeri seemed to consider it for a second, as if wanting to object but not finding enough arguments to, before looking back at him and nodding, “Okay.”

_ Huh, _ Doyoung thought to himself,  _ that was easy _ . Some part of him had expected the girl to insist, but there was a pleasant type of warmth sweetening his pulse as he saw her accepting his suggestion.

He turned back to the graves once he saw the girl sitting down next to the bicycle, ready to keep going. 

Soon, the entire Jung side was fully scouted, and similarly to the Suh side, only some inscriptions made references to the moon, but again, enough. He had tried to find some sort of pattern to them though, but he came up with none.

Doyoung felt himself about to fall lost again to the threads he was trying to braid, making his way through the tombs to the center, when one of them caught his eye once again. He hadn’t noticed the first time around, but this tomb was much new, amongst the Suhs, the newest of the side.

It was like a big granite block with a bronze plaque in the middle of it, maybe slightly bigger in size than the rest, but other than that and its newness, nothing else stood out from it. Doyoung got close enough to read what was written and found himself twisting his eyebrows over it.

_ Suh Jungkwon. 3.04. 1947- 24.03.1985. Father, husband, leader. The Moon gifts the brave, and so it will gift you. _

Suh Jungkwon. The name scratched at some part of his brain, a name that had been important at some point, a name he had told himself he had to remember. His hands scrambled to open his messenger bag, digging until he came upon the fresh of the leather of his notebook.

He swiped through the pages almost frantically, until he found it.

_ Suh Jungkwon: found dead in 85’ (very  _ _ gorey _ _ ). full description in the eye. Just a  _ _ mention  _ _ in the seeker. About to be chief police+municipal charge ,  _ _ loved by the community _ _ . possible animal attack? _

Suddenly, Doyoung remembered something.

Johnny’s truck. His eyebags. “ _ Those days, you know?” _ . But most importantly, the little mention about his mom working in the town’s hall, and what he had said right after.

_ “She actually took over after my dad passed away.” _

Quick math confirmed it for him: Suh Jungkwong not only was the man that had been brutally murdered, the last case that the Eye had been able to report.

He had also been Johnny’s dad.

_ And  _ he had a mention of the moon in his grave.

Doyoung felt the blood rushing out of his head, leaving him slightly dizzy, just as much as this information did to him. It was like the library all over again. He needed time to think, but before that, he needed time to process, but before that, he needed a distraction from the overthinking his mind was trying to do right then.

Before he could tell where they were going, his legs were walking him to Jeno.

The teen lifted his head as he heard him approaching, a focused frown wrinkling his eyebrows just a little, but relaxing the second he focused on him. Doyoung offered a smile, much more unaffected than he felt, and he reached out to pat his shoulder.

“All good?”, the words slipped from his lips before he could think about them, and he could feel the younger relaxing under his caress. It felt weird, acting like he had known Jeno forever, but he found himself falling naturally into it. It was almost like he did, like he was talking to his own family. Jeno had definitely been welcoming of him since he had arrived -or the closest to it he could have expected from the townspeople back then- but he felt an ease next to him that felt more ancient.

Jeno only nodded, replying to his question, and moved to let him take a look at his parent’s graves.

Lee Siyeon and Kim Jungah. Both beloved, both missed, both-

Both mentioning the Moon in their epitaph.

_ May the moon find you for your bravery with her. _

_ May the moon find you for your bravery with him. _

And their date of death- for both of them it was… it was March 26 th of 1985. That was two days apart from Jungkwon. Coincidence?

“Is there something wrong?”, he heard Jeno’s voice ask, pulling him out of his thoughts instantly, but he only shook his head vigorously as a response, hoping to come off as overcome with emotion. A different emotion than the one he was feeling, at least.

He let his hand rub at Jeno’s shoulder with more force, as if giving him support, before asking him how much longer he was going to stay. Jeno simply replied that they’d wait for him, since they had already taken the day off at school. Doyoung frowned slightly at this, but he guessed the teens hadn’t-

_ Hadn’t what _ ?, he stopped himself,  _ They hadn’t ‘what’, that others have? _

He shut the voice in his mind instantly, slightly annoyed by his own paranoia, as he turned at the girl. Yeri was still next to the bike, mindlessly, cutting grass, hands moving as if she was braiding it. Jeno nodded at him one last time before leaving him to his thoughts again, joining her.

Doyoung took a long look at the graves, as he urged himself to calm down and think. Think. He needed to think.

Jeno’s parents and Johnny’s dad, all of them had died the same week, seventeen years ago. Johnny’s dad's cause of death wasn’t confirmed, but Jeno’s parents hadn’t been referenced  _ anywhere _ . Not even in the obituaries of the main newspaper. And if they hadn’t been reported… How many deaths had gone unreported, as well?

And how many other deaths had gone unnoticed that week?

Doyoung felt the air leaving his lungs through his mouth, a short exhale, as he looked around, knowing exactly what he had to do. He needed to find out if there had been more. He wasn’t sure  _ why _ , but he was sure that he  _ needed _ to.

His eyes wandered all over the field, taking it in. There had to be at least three hundred tombs, not counting the center, and looking at all of them wouldn’t take him less than five hours…

No. There had to be another connection, something else that would make him narrow it down.

But what? What was the missing link? Doyoung felt his brain wringing itself, trying desperately to sort through his memories, as his notebook opened between his fingers and the small pages began being flipped all over. He was nearly sure that the deaths  _ had  _ to be connected. But what could possibly connect Jeno’s parents and Johnny’s dad? What could possibly connect the Lee’s and the S-…?

_ “Jeno! I didn’t know you were part of the family!” _

_ “Ah, no, I’m not…! My grandma is close with Myoryeon” _

The people at the party. At Myeoryeon’s party. Her closest circle…

And most likely her late husband’s too.

Doyoung immediately flipped his notebook again, finding the last pages, the pages where he had meticulously written down every person he had met’s full name and connection. Park Sooyoung, Kim Jongin, Park Sunyoung, Jung Jaehyun, Kim Yeri, all of those names had been labeled as Johnny’s friends.

Would it be a stretch…?

Doyoung shook his head and decided that there was only one way to find out. As fast as he could, he began wandering in the parcel, trying to find more Kims, more Parks. He felt his head flipping around frantically, almost in a trance, before it was broken by Yeri’s voice.

“Doyoung?”, she yelled, and when he turned to them, he saw both kids walking up to him, “Are you okay?”

As they approached, Doyoung felt his heartrate accelerate. A part of him was telling him to shut up, to keep his search hidden, to avoid giving away what he already knew, if he knew anything at all. It was telling him that knowledge was danger.

Another part of him, though, that part of him  _ trusted _ them. He trusted them, a couple of  _ teens _ .

He felt almost crazed.

And yet, as soon as they got within hearing distance, the words slipped out of his mouth.

“Do you know where Sooyoung’s family lay?”

He felt his air trap into his lungs as he saw both teens stop at his words and shift their semblance. Yeri tensed, her muscles suddenly stressed with aprehension. Jeno, standing some steps in front of her, was fueled up by something else. 

He was fueled with resolve.

“I can take you there.”

Doyoung swallowed and nodded, and the next thing he knew, the young teen had taken the lead. 

It was almost a trek, the site feeling much larger than it looked now that he had to walk across it to reach the exact opposite side. The weird rush he had been feeling started amping up the closer he got to their destination, making his breath hitch even when he tried to distract himself with the shapes of the tombs they were passing by. He tried to focus on them, on the interesting mixture between the traditional Korean ones, undoubtedly the more ancient, dirtied ones, and the more modern ones, with different shapes, decoration and materials.

Once they reached the middle of the section, Jeno’s pace halted in front of a particular grave. Doyoung let himself walk until hes right next to him, eyes fixed on the stone before them, before felt his chest letting out air, relaxing at the sight. Relaxing, because he didn’t have it in him to be surprised anymore.

_ Kim Junyeong, 13.01.1959 - 25.03.1985 _ .

There’s no room for speculation in his mind anymore. Something happened. Something happened that week- something really bad.

He felt his mind reeling with dates, names, numbers once again, and his eyes frantically going from point to point, as if the figurative blackboard that was his mind was before his eyes. He felt Jeno next to him, his body heat close but not suffocating, and behind him, Yeri’s shuffling over the grass told him she was close, as well. But he couldn’t focus on that, he couldn’t focus on them anymore. Four deaths within three days, all in the same year, all graves including some sort of reference to the moon. Wolves were supposed to have some sort of connection to the moon- some sort of closeness, longing for it? It had to be related to it.

It had to be related to the wolf cult.

In those rapid eye movements, something called his attention enough to pull him out of his thoughts, and before he could think himself what he was doing, he was stepping across the row of graves he was at to the one right in front of it.

Almost desperately, he walked up to other two modern looking graves, ones with a clear moon engraved to them, and he fell to his knees, reading the names.

_ Kim Jokyung, Kim Hyeri. _ Both dead on March 27 th  of 1985. Both with words about the moon dedicated to them for the afterlife.

“Those were Sunyoung’s mother and grandfather”, he heard Yeri say, solemn, almost muffled, and he couldn’t help the hysterical laugh he let out. “The man was like her father, though.”

“We all suffered back then.”, Jeno muttered, “but sunyoung suffered the most, she was the oldest of all of us.”

“We?”, the question fell from his lips almost without his knowledge, “All of us?”

“Johnny, Sooyoung, Sunyoung, Jongin, me… And Jaehyun.”

Doyoung blinked a couple times, recalculating, affirming, threading in his mind, as he processed what that meant. All of them, all of them but Yeri, all of them had suffered a great loss at the same time. What are the odds? What are the  _ fucking _ odds?

He breathed in deep once, let out all of his air once, before stepping up. All of a sudden, he felt all the pressure, all of the information he had flooding, polluting his mind fall into place at once, as if he had finally, finally figured out the puzzle, and had only a few pieces missing.

It was similar to a neutral peace, what he felt, as he allowed himself to pat his knees, before turning to the teen once again. He needed to ask it. He needed to know.

“Jeno,” he called, and the boy lifted his chin, looking at him into his eyes, “your parent’s death, what was the cause?”

Jeno’s eyes seemed to swallow him as he replied, “Animal attack.”

Doyoung nodded, eyes falling to the grass once again, but his voice made him look at him once again.

“But that wasn’t when they died, though.”, he added, out of nowhere, voice edging bitterness, “The date on their tombs.”

Doyoung frowned once again, confused, “When was it, then?”

Jeno looked at him, as he had done for a while now, with dark eyes brewing fear, worry, decision and a thousand more emotions into them, as he said:

“March 24 th .”

Doyoung didn’t have time to react, as his eyes shot to the girl, whose head had whipped to the east with a flash of her long hair.

“Someone’s coming.”

Doyoung opened his mouth to question it, when he heard it too. It was a soft rumble, merely louder than a whisper that was growing by the second, coming closer. He knew that rumble pretty well, since he had heard it the most in the big city, but also, more sporadically, in Neukddomyeon. It was a car’s rumble, the sound that an old motor made, and he couldn’t help to realize who it probably was.

Jeno turned to the sound, as well, all three sets of eyes turned towards the gate, distant now that they were well into the holy land, and it wasn’t long until his suspicions were confirmed. A grey truck parked right in front of the gate, blocking it, and a man came out. Johnny came out.

The older man crossed his arms and rested against the vehicle, patient, and Doyoung felt something akin to a twist sicken his stomach. Still, they began walking back without a word.

It took them some time until they arrived to the gate once again, and Doyoung’s feet felt heavier each step he took. It was the guilt, the guilt of knowing he had lied to the man, and that not only he had found out, but came directly to find him with his hands dirty.

He didn’t understand why he felt so terrible about it, like he had been snooping into something he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help the sensation. It was like he was back to his first week in he town.

Johnny awaited for them, but his eyes weren’t fixed on anyone but him. They were heavy, as they always were, but this time mixed with something that looked too much like resignation and disappointment, almost like a father would look at a misbehaving child. Doyoung found that he didn’t know what to do under them.

“I thought you were going to go to the college.”, he opened with.

Doyoung felt himself hugging his notebook closer to him, to his stomach, as if willing the sensation to calm. “It was closed.” He tried for a small smile, “Sunday, and all.”

Johnny held his eyes on him some more, scrutinizing him, and then they shot away behind him, to the teens. “And you?”

There was a slight relief in Doyoung as that vanished his fears from before completely. They hadn’t come under Johnny’s request. They hadn’t been tracking him for him.

And then, he remembered the last terms Johnny and Jeno had ended in, and tensed again.

“Just wandering around.” Jeno shrugged, almost petulant, “Came to see my parents.”

Doyoung saw Johnny’s eyes come slightly more alive with anger, as they glared at the boy behind him, and he could almost feel the glare back Jeno was giving in return. Strangely, this made him come alive too, as he felt his body react without his consent, stepping back closer to the teens, covering them from the man’s glare.

There was some sort of electricity growing between them, some friction about to explode when-

When, far into the woods, a thunder fell.

“It’s going to rain soon.”, Yeri suddenly said, tone guarded, and a quick glance back to them let him see the girl grabbing Jeno, trying to pull at him. Jeno, however, wasn’t letting his glare fall away.

“She’s right.”, Johnny said, still glaring as he opened the door next to him, and climbed inside. “You should go.”

Doyoung, without a word, hurried around the Isuzu and climbed next to him, as well, but even before he put on his belt, he felt the boy calling him once again.

“One more thing”, he said, and his eyes were now on him, all the way from across the older, as if there was only him and Doyoung there.

“Yes?”, he asked.

And Jeno’s eyes, ever intense, looked into him with the same intensity and determination and anger as before, as he said:

“The library’s opened again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m updating this with my eyes falling closed. My god. This chapter took me waaaayyyyyyy tooo long to be able to figure out... not only that but I got a new job and it’s killing me (:
> 
> I hope that you still liked it even though there was almost to none johndo.... but hey. We’re almost at the end OWO.
> 
> The idea is that this story will end on the day of all dead, so yeah. :D.
> 
> ALSO IM SORRY FOR NOT REPLYING THE COMMENTS LAST CHAPTER I SWEAR TO GOD IM NOT AN ASSHOLE 


	17. Chapter 17

From a third point of view, like a god, Doyoung was watching himself burn.

He saw the way the flames were eating at his chest from the inside, happily slithering their way out from wherever they could like tentacles, and his throat elongating as he looked up, to the heavens, to let out a shrill. Even as he opened his mouth to do so, flames tried to climb out from there.

He saw the way he fell to his knees, and in a desperation he didn’t think he had ever experienced, he began clawing his own skin out, trying to let it out, piece by piece, rips of his flesh tearing like cloth. He saw traces of tears sliding down his face, tears of fear, tears of distress. 

But curiously, no tears of pain.

He woke up in a gasp.

His eyes opened, staring straight into his bedroom’s wall, but the first thing he really noticed was his own heartbeat. It was bombing straight into his eardrums, a constant fast tempo that he focused on deescalate before even thinking on the rest of his self.

As the beat calmed, his hand felt up his chest, patting up only to be interrupted by a large arm covering the entirety of his waist, pressing him against the body behind him. Right, Johnny had stayed the night.

Secretly, Doyoung had been happy about it. To a point. Perhaps _relieved_ would be a better word for it, since the rest of the day had been sort of tense, Johnny much less talkative than always, but lacking that dim calm that would glow from him whenever he was tired from work. He had worked his way around Doyoung’s kitchen, with the younger tailing behind him, as they both worked on their dinner in a way that was almost too coordinated to be foreign.

Johnny had started a movie just as Doyoung was finishing the dishes, and when he walked into the living-room and he extended his arms to make space for him to curl into his lap, Doyoung knew that he wasn’t really mad, had never been. At least not with him. And the tension had slowly faded away, not completely, but at least to a bearable point until they decided they needed a real bed.

Doyoung heard his heart falling into the usual rhythm, and as it did so, he decided it was time to get up. But as he tried to pry it off of him, the arm showed its disagreement, and tightened.

“Johnny…”

“Hmmng…” he groaned, “a littl’ longer…” and cuddled the younger more into him.

Doyoung felt the corner of his lips lifting just slightly, a distant urgency somewhere in his mind getting buried underneath the feel of the fit of the two of them. He never thought he could feel comfortable like this against other man. He never thought he could feel this wanted by someone.

He sighed, silently, and wriggled his way around to face the other man.

Johnny still had his eyes closed, but there was a tension in his mouth, a tension that he lacked when he was truly asleep, that gave him away. Doyoung took some seconds to take him in, to take in the manliness he had once envied and now just admired, to take in the high of his cheekbones that had brushed against his skin whenever they cuddled, to take in the thick of his lips with which he devoured him.

Johnny was definitely handsome, handsome in ways that he now allowed to make him feel certain ways.

Suddenly, his eyes opened, almost in a comical way, and he smirked at him.

“Like what you see?”

Doyoung felt heat tinting his ears, and decided to let himself drop on his back, a casual excuse to pry his eyes away. “I need to get up,” he whispered, “you can stay.”

The older rolled his way over him, holding his own weight with both forearms, and Doyoung accommodated himself under him right away. “Where are you going today?” his tone was light as he asked, in a good mood, “Or are you going to lie to me again?”

Doyoung felt the blood that had rushed into his cheeks before, draining away. “I- I didn’t-… I-“

“Hey,” his voice was lower this time, but it held an almost mocking tint to it. “The college’s open on Sunday. Residents live there.” One of his long hands brushed down his bangs, pulling them aside with a small smile. Doyoung couldn’t help to close his eyes at the touch, “It’s okay.”

Doyoung ‘s gaze went to the ceiling, to the wardrobe behind them trying to find something to look at but him, as he allowed himself some seconds to think away, or to wash down the embarrassment, or both. He knew Johnny’s gaze was still on him, patient, stubbornly refusing to let it go.

“I’m going to the library,” he finally admitted, “I thought I had told you yesterday.”

“You didn’t.”, Johnny replied, but he couldn’t read him as he said it, because he was too busy welcoming his lips on his.

Quickly, Johnny was completely on top of him with a leg opening its way between his, a hand cupping his jaw, as he deepened the kiss. Doyoung did his best to keep up, as his arms passed around his neck, responding fervently, trying to fight back those lips that seemed intent on bruising him, that tongue that wanted to taste him, but in the end, he could only give up and give in. The older was good at taking control, and Doyoung felt too uncomfortable asking for it back.

“Can’t you stay?”, Johnny suddenly mumbled between kisses, one of his hands traveling down, following the line of the dip of his hip ”Go in the afternoon? Or tomorrow instead?”

Doyoung let his grip loose a little, head shaking, “Johnny…”, it came out as a breath, because the older was now busy down his neck.

“I just want to spend some time with you”, Doyoung moaned, as the older grinded his hips against him with voice unfairly even, “I wasn’t lying when I said that the other day”

“What thing?”, Doyoung sighed more than said, a shiver running down his spine at the feel of his teeth ranking down the sensitive skin,

“About you having a place here. With us.” Johnny grinded against him once more, gentler, and his voice fell to a mere whisper against his ear, “You have a home. You have a family.” The hand on his jaw went to his hair, and he scratched his scalp just the slightest, sending another shiver down his body. Those thick lips were now on that spot between his jaw and his neck that made him melt away, “I think you should stay.”

Doyoung’s first response was a moan, and his own hips grinding up to meet his without his consent. His second one, much less distinguishable as it was said between pants, was “I can’t.”, he let another moan, long and private, escape his lips, “I can’t- stay.”, he closed his eyes once again, lost in the feel of him, and sighed, turned on, “We can make it work. But I can’t- I can’t stay.”

“Doyoung…-Fuck.” Johnny moaned, as Doyoung pressed him more against him, needing more again, letting their cocks touch for a brief moment, both hard and ready.

“I can visit…” he said like a promise.

“Why do you need to go back? Why do you even have there?” Johnny suddenly stopped, letting his weight press him under him, surprising him, “A job? A pet?” and he was now looking at him, eyes serious, “Do you even have _any_ family left?”

Doyoung felt the air stuck in his throat, all of a sudden, all previous lust draining away from him like water on earth, as he looked into Johnny’s eyes and unavoidably felt his own starting to burn.

Johnny, as if he had just figured out how much of a chord he hit, let his head fall, and breathed in, just for a second, “I’m sorry.”

Doyoung swallowed, willing at the same time the burn away, “It’s okay, I- I need to get going…”

“Yeah, yeah…”, Johnny said, exasperated, as he lifted himself up to his knees, letting Doyoung shuffle away, “You get ready, I’ll make us some breakfast.”

Doyoung gave him a small nod, before running into the bathroom and starting the shower, glad to have an excuse to escape. Except that the second water hit his skin, an uncomfortable sense of anxiety began taking over him, as he began going over his plan.

The problem now wasn’t that he didn’t know what to do. It was that he knew exactly what to do. He knew exactly what questions he needed a reply for, and he was almost sure where he’d get his answers.

He was almost sure it was all in that last edition, the one from _The Eye_.

But was he ready for those answers?

 _That’s stupid_ , he reprimanded himself, as he dried his hair using a towel, _why wouldn’t I be?_ After all, it didn’t involve him in any way; it shouldn’t affect him at all. Plus, in something like six days he would be free from it all, he wouldn’t ever have to think again of the wolves from Neukddomyeon.

His breakfast with Johnny was as silent as he expected, and he didn’t know if he was glad or not about it. The occasional sounds of cutlery hitting dish were the only thing to distract him from his unrest, but he was sure that if he were to be in a talking mood, Johnny would address what had happened earlier. He really didn’t want to give himself room to think about any of that. Not the implications, nor what it had made him feel. He couldn’t afford to waste time on that, today.

Before he knew it, he was wiping his hands after doing the dishes, and his nerves were electrizing his skin. Next to him, leaning against the counter, Johnny had been silently watching him work, and Doyoung felt the weight of his eyes as they followed him while he put on his jacket and hung his messenger bag over his chest.

It wasn’t until he was done getting ready that he dared look up, feeling terribly skittish, to meet his gaze. And as soon as he did, Johnny let out a sigh, and in a swift movement, he pulled him into him.

Doyoung’s eyes fell closed as soon as Johnny’s hand pressed around his jaw, and soon he felt his lips pressing against his. It was intense, bruising, and he could feel the older’s restraint from not using more of his strength to press him even closer. It felt full of implications, full of words unsaid, this kiss, words Doyoung couldn’t even begin to figure out.

Johnny pulled away, pulling him away at the same time, and his eyes were again looking into him, but Doyoung was too busy feeling dizzy to be able to feel their weight this time. 

“See you later, yeah?”

Doyoung simply nodded, dismissed, and didn’t waste a second springing away.

When the enormous gates of the library finally stood in front of him once again, Doyoung was able to put a name to the sensation he had been feeling since that morning.

He felt overwhelmed.

His fingers twisted around the strap, fingers that had been busy gripping it all the way to the place and he was surprised to be able to identify yet another emotion brewing inside of him, pooling and twisting into his stomach. This one was dread.

He allowed himself a couple more seconds, seconds he used to breathe in and out a couple times, to remind himself _all of this happened years ago_ and _this doesn’t affect you,_ before he could finally gather enough courage to walk in.

As soon as he was inside he was hit with the distinctive smell of books, old, new ones, a smell he hadn’t paid attention before. He nearly jumped, before turning around at the sound of a chair’s drag, only to find the receptionist, the same reluctant girl from months ago, standing up like a spring at his presence. Before he could let out a word, she threw him a look, and began a nervous walk to the archive room.

Doyoung, who had been used to everything being made more difficult to him until now, was rather shocked at the ease it was being handed to him now.

The girl- Wendy, as he remembered, simply used her key to open the door with a few fidgety twists of her wrist, and left before Doyoung could even thank her, her eyes glued to the floor like a scorned child.

He felt another twist in his stomach, his hand on the handle, and in that moment he decided he didn’t want to know what had happened in this town. He _needed_ it.

And so, he walked in.

The twist turned into a hot second of nausea as he was hit- no, punched by the smell inside the room. It was old, it was nearly rotten, it was enclosed. It was like the smell in the main room, but a thousand times worse, more concentrated.

 _It’s normal_ , he desperately told himself, as he ran to the window and opened it, desperate to let fresh air in, _this place stayed closed even more than usual. A stronger smell is normal._

He decided to not give himself any time to think, as he dropped his bag next to the chair and quickly found the cabinet, the damn cabinet with the damn last edition before the murders. Before the fire.

And most importantly, the last edition after the animal attacks.

He felt his hands almost shaking as they went through the transparent bags that enclosed each edition fast, almost too fast for him to be able to actually see what he was looking for. He went through all of them once, twice, cold fingers carding through them, thrice, and he was getting nervous. Why couldn’t he find it? Did he leave it in a different cabinet? Did someone else take it? He felt his eyes welling up with desperate tears, as he carded a fourth time-

And then, he found it.

It hadn’t even been hidden, the familiar cover partially blocked by the reflection of the light above him against the plastic that protected it, he simply accidentally skipped over it out of nervousness. He took it, as he took deep breaths calming himself, between his hands still shaking, and told himself to calm down. He needed to calm down.

Kneeled, as he was, he closed the cabinet, and held the bag to his chest, allowing himself to feel both newspapers inside with his fingers over it, as if to reassure himself. Nobody’s rushing him. Nobody’s going to hurt him. There was no need for his panic.

He needed his mind cold. He needed to examine them in detail. He couldn’t let his paranoia complicate things for him right now.

Doyoung let his head fall against the cold metal behind him, and closed his eyes for a couple seconds, willing himself to relax. _Just read the damn newspaper_ , he told himself, and the voice in his mind sounded frustrated, _it’s just that_.

He breathed in deep one last time, and then, he opened his eyes. He let them wander around, recognizing the room he was in, the window he had opened himself, the door he had closed himself. The dirty floor. The cold of the cabinets.

He finally felt his mind calm down again.

 _Good_ , he thought, with relief, _now let’s get this over with._

With extreme carefulness, he opened the bag and took both of the newspapers out. Just as he remembered, both covers featured the tragic death of police officer Suh, except that while _The Eye_ had it as the main story, _The Seeker_ only dedicated a small corner down under, buried between other much less bloody stories.

He decided that _The Seeker_ wouldn’t be telling him anything that he’d want to know, so he swiftly placed it back inside the bag, and braced himself, as he opened _The Eye_.

With a more critical observation, he had realized that he hadn’t actually read the entire edition, back when he first had it in his hands. He had gone straight to the murder’s story, really skimming over everything else.

But thinking it over, and remembering the pieces of stories that had seemed missing in previous editions, he had realized that maybe, just maybe, The Eye’s editors had known a bit too much, and much more importantly, they had tried to share this information with… with the rest of the town’s people?

Which would be weird, if it was actually about a cult. Since small town people were usually in each other’s pockets, you’d think they’d know about an ongoing cult.

So, that had been his first mistake back then, not paying enough attention. A mistake he’d correct right now.

He opened the index, and instantly frowned.

“What…?”

 _‘SPECIAL EDITION’_ , it said, in big, black letters. _‘ALL ABOUT WEREWOLVES!’_

“Werewolves…?”

He blinked once. Why would they choose to use up space in an informative newspaper for that? And why hadn’t they featured that in the cover, either?

Doyoung couldn’t help himself, and began flipping through the pages.

_‘WEREWOLVES 101, ¿What and Who are these terrible beasts?’_

He flips the page

Michael Jackson in his red jacket and yellow, unnatural eyes stares back at him, a vicious smile breaking his face.

_‘THRILLER NIGHT: Werewolves in pop culture!’_

He flipped the page.

_‘What’s happening in Neukddomyeon? Police Officer Suh’s death gets added to the pile of deaths the town has been experiencing. ‘_

Wait, what?

_‘The officer’s death marks the 20 th victim in the last few months.’_

Doyoung felt a rush pumping through his veins once again.

He flipped the page.

_‘A brief resume of werewolf in history…’_

He flipped the page.

_‘WHERE ARE THEY? Jung Seungkwan, Lee Siyeon, Kim Jungah and more….’_

He flipped the page.

_‘Lycanthropy…’_

He flipped the page.

_‘Suh Jungkwon…’_

He flipped the page.

Werewolf. Werewolf. Werewolves. Lycans. A death. Myths. Werewolves. Werewolves. Shim Changmin. Werewolves-

Wait.

Shim Changmin!?

Before he knew it, he was back to that article, mind going a thousand miles per hour, barely paying attention to the frail of the paper.

_‘When dealing with werewolves one must always remember, first and foremost, that these beasts aren’t human, nor are wolves. They are both. And as such, one can find behavior of both species mixed into one._

_A pack works both as a family and as a forte. Werewolves attack in group, like wolves, and in ideal conditions, they live in one as well.’_

Doyoung felt a laugh leaving his lips. What?!

It was a long article, the longest in terms of words, no pictures, all writing. The wording was formal, closer to clinical, like a scientific research paper, but it was about…

_'Alphas are crucial to the pack. As it is passed in the genes, an alpha will always tend to be the strongest wolf in the pack. This status can be challenged, but it will end up in a death, more often than not, of the contender.'_

For some reason, Johnny’s shape, imposing, bigger than the rest of his friends came to mind.

_‘An alpha is not only a leader. It’s a father. It’s a carer. It’s a strategist and the commander. Their authority is absolute, not only because of the status but because werewolves, in their most humane trait, perhaps, develop a deep respect and appreciation towards them._

_Taking an alpha out first is the most efficient way to get rid of the pack. Without him, there’s a low rate of survival for the rest. So, as such, the pack protects the alpha as fiercely as the alpha protects the pact.’_

Another memory, in the bar, when Sooyoung had first talked to him. And her words: “ _Don’t dare come for Neukddomyeon because if you do, Neukddomyeon will come for you”_

He felt a shiver run down his spine, and he found his hands shaking again. But he couldn’t stop. Why he couldn’t stop reading? This was bullshit. This was all bullshit.

_‘While just as important as an alpha is, an alpha’s mate is not crucial to a pack. But a pack with a nurturing pair at the front is always harder to exterminate.’_

Alpha’s mate. This had to be a joke, right? This had to be a very well done mock article, because…

_‘If the alpha can be compared to a father, the alpha’s mate could be the mother. Notably, they end up developing more strength, more agility, and a bigger size than the rest. They evolve to match the alpha, as soon as they get claimed.’_

For some reason, the tightness of the fabric around his shoulders, tightness that had _not_ been there when he had first come to Neukddomyeon, let itself know in Doyoung’s awareness.

_‘Their role is not fully clear yet, as we haven’t been able to catch one to examine them, but it has been theorized that if the alpha appeals to the pack’s more animal side, the mate will appeal to the more human side. It has been suggested that they might be the emotional support, or even the lever for the leader. Alphas have been known to get ruthless; it is not hard to imagine that the only ones that could get to them are the mates._

_However, there’s another interesting point to alpha’s mates. They are the only type of werewolf that can be not born one.’_

_I need to stop reading,_ he told himself, _I need to stop._

_‘As it was said before, the werewolf disease is passed down the genes; therefore almost all wolves are born ones. This, however, implies that the pack will most likely be part of the same family- or related in some way._

_This is not a bother for the rest of the pack; however, the alpha will need a mate that is a werewolf, necessarily. It is theorized, because of this, that they developed the ability to infect a human they see fit as the role of their mate, to turn them into one of them._

_They will seduce this human and claim them first. Sexual intercourse can do this, it’s most important that the pack can smell the scent of the alpha strongly on them.’_

Behind his eyes, sudden flashes of memories came to his mind. Johnny arriving just in time to give him a lift. Johnny helping him meet people. Johnny helping him cook. Johnny taking him to the lake. Johnny comforting him.

He felt bile raise to his stomach.

Johnny having sex with him. And the instant switch in the way people began acting towards him right after. 

_‘There is a suspected case of a human that went through the claim, without getting to the next step. Lorelei Montés, was found dead, mutilated in the Puebla woods in 1853, not long after the suspected claim. It is still unclear if it was a different pack’s doing, but it is possible it was her own’s.’_

Doyoung thought of Sooyoung’s continuous glare. Of Yoonoh’s sudden attack. Of Yeri’s apology.

_‘The following step is the bite. The alpha has to cut through the flesh, infect their mate’s blood with his genes. For ritualistic reasons (as werewolves seem to be an extremely ritualistic breed, the author reiterates), there’s only one condition found as to when this will happen: under a new moon’s night. ‘_

Doyoung remembered the way he convinced himself that the blood (his blood!) he had seen in Johnny’s lips had been part of his imagination that one night.

And he let out a laugh.

_‘And thus an alpha’s mate gets born. And the world gets damned with one more of them.’_

“Fuck…”, he whispered, feeling as if he had no air in his lungs, “Fuck. What the fuck? What the fuck?!”, he dropped himself against the chair’s back, letting out another delirious laugh, “I’m going insane. This town is making me go _fucking_ -“

The words died in his lips as his eyes landed on the title of the entire article once again. He let his eyes linger on them some seconds- or minutes. Or perhaps they didn’t linger at all. But then, he was standing up, throwing the newspaper closed and fucking running out that _damn_ place.

“Shim Changmin. Written by part of the longest supernatural hunter’s family, Shim Changmin.”, he muttered to himself, like a crazy man, as he took long paces across the library. He felt blind, his body moving by itself, not even knowing if anybody had called after him. “Fuck. _Fuck_. Changmin is a fucking _book_ writer, and a shitty one at that not a fucking-“

“I’m guessing you finally found out.” a voice called after him, a voice he knew, and suddenly, he realized he was already out of the library, “Took you long enough.”

Doyoung felt a sound leave his lips, and he turned around, sharp.

“I didn’t find out _shit_.”, his finger pointed at Yoonoh, angry, as the man looked at him. He felt himself coming at him, adrenaline rushing through his veins, “I didn’t find shit, you hear? I’m just going fucking crazy, that’s what’s happening. And you all are-”

“Really?”, Yoonoh said, infuriatingly smug, “Then what the fuck is this?”

In a flash, the younger grabbed at the arm he was pointing at him with, and shook it before him. Doyoung felt the air leaving his lungs, leaving him forever, as he saw his own hands. He saw his own hands, and the claws that were coming out of his fingers, sharp like knives.

“Look at you, Doyoung.”, Yoonoh’s voice rumbled, “Look at me.”

He tore his eyes away from his hand to find the man’s face, to find pointy fangs edging his teeth, to find his pupils completely blown, insane, like an animal seeing their prey.

“This is real.”, he finally whispered. And Doyoung began pulling his arm away from his grip.

“No. No! Fuck”, Doyoung _growled_. He _growled_ , “Let me go!”

“I told you to leave and what did you do? Stay like a fucking nosy mouse.”, Doyoung felt anger rise once again inside him, and a stronger tuss let his arm free. The younger was not impressed, charcoal eyes still boring into him, “ This is the best case scenario. You should thank him, really.”

 _Him_.

Johnny.

This was all Johnny’s fault.

Another noise tore from his throat, another growl, and he was suddenly moving away from the man. He was almost running, bag violently hitting his body as he strode. He didn’t know how he was going but he sure knew where he was going.

His home.

And much before he knew it, he was in front of the familiar door, with the familiar wall and the familiar scratches that he now fucking knew what animal they belonged to.

He banged the door open, and closed it with another bang.

“Doy-!”

“You knew it. _You fucking knew it_.”

Johnny was in front of him, agitated, chest rising up and down in distressed breaths.

Something about the sight made Doyoung see red.

“You turned me into this?! Fuck, Johnny, _werewolves_!? A _werewolf_!?” Doyoung was in his space, suddenly, and he felt his gums burning in pain. “You turned me into your fucking _werewolf mate_?!”

He tried to grab at the older, hands cramped from the tension, but the older was quicker, reaching at his face, like he was holding him lovingly, like he was about to kiss him.

“Look, Doyoung-“

“This is YOUR fault!” he _roared_ , and his hands finally found place to latch onto. His claws dug into the Johnny’s wrists, forcing him away from him, “LET GO!”

And then, Johnny let out a roar himself.

“I did what’s best for you!”, he screamed at him, forcing his hands on his cheeks once again, making Doyoung look at him, “I did it because you need me, and I need you. I did it because I love you-“

Something exploded inside of him.

“BEST FOR _ME_!? I’LL KILL YOU!”

“Doyoung!”

With a strength he didn’t know was possible, he threw Johnny away, barely aware how he hit the wall.

And then, his knees gave in. He felt his hands shaking. He felt his lungs closing. There was something under his skin. It needed to get out. He needed to get out!

He felt rage. He felt his muscles aching, begging him to break, to maim, to tear, and the fangs hurting his tongue needing, begging to be wetted in blood. He ached, and he couldn’t think, and he felt panic and burning and _rage_ -

A growl tore his throat, painful, and his body contorted.

He needed to get out.

He shred the door and his muscles cried, thanking him for the violence, wanting more, and then he was out.

And then, he ran.

And he ran.

And he ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy late halloween :D
> 
> we still have the epilogue left! ;)
> 
> (i will check for more grammar mistakes later again!)


	18. Epilogue

**_For the moon_ **

Doyoung woke up.

No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t wake up.

He came to.

Doyoung came to, and his muscles were shaking. And he was naked. And his hands, his shoulder, his chest, all of it were wet, splattered in something thick, something that was dripping slowly, slowly down his skin.

Doyoung came to, and he was wet with blood.

He felt a gasp escaping from his chest, a silent gasp, making all oxygen leave his lungs, as he stared at his hands, at the deep, rich, shiny carmine of the damp liquid, at the oxidized brown of the dried borders, at the way his fingers, his palms looked covered by them, like paint, like gloves, and he almost couldn’t understand it.

He shook straight, suddenly, and it occurred to him to look around. He saw a familiar pot plant, cracked in half, spilled on the floor. He saw a familiar kitchen, the two stylish stools, broken, the bright fluorescent lights.

He saw the carpet, drenched in blood, as well, and he realized that he knew this place.

He knew this place because it was Taeyong’s.

A massacre had happened in Taeyong’s apartment.

 _He_ had made a massacre happen in Taeyong’s apartment.

“No…”, he felt a burn on the rim of his eyes, looking at his own hands, suddenly realizing where all that blood came from, “No!”

His pulse rose, his chest began pumping up and down in rapid breaths and no, this couldn’t have happened, he couldn’t have done that. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. Hot tears burned down his cheeks, lining down his cheeks. He couldn’t have done this to his best friend, his only friend. 

Like a breaking dam, sobs finally began ripping through his chest, bursting out his throat, and a ringing sound was making his head ache and- and his hands were drenched in Taeyong’s blood.

“Taeyong…” he sobbed, “Please…” noises began sounding in the background, a door opening, people entering the apartment -the massacred apartment- but he just couldn’t pay attention to it, he couldn’t pay attention to anything but the ringing and his tears and the _blood_ , “Please, Taeyong… I’m- I-…”

Someone dropped in front of him, kneeling next to him, and before he knew it, he was being crushed against a familiar chest, two strong arms snaking around him, fighting to stop his shaking.

“Shh…”, he felt fingers carding through his hair, almost desperate, “Everything will be okay, Doie. I’m here. We’re here.”

“Taeyong… I- I-…”, his own sobs choked him, scalding tears soaking him and now, the man hugging him as well, “Johnny, I… I killed-…”

Johnny pressed him harder against his form, and began rocking him, supporting his entire weight, trying to comfort the hollow his chest away. He felt like a child. He felt like a murderer. He felt comfort trying to make root inside of him, and the intense disgust he felt for himself axing it.

“It’s okay, shh, it’s okay.”, Johnny took his hands, carefully untangling them from around his body, and he felt the warmth of a coat over his shoulders. He heard how he barked a couple orders, and a sudden movement that made him flinch, as the older caught something in his hands, “We’ll take you home, yeah? Everything will be okay, we’re here”, Johnny’s voice took over almost all of his mind, as he worked his hands clean with a wet rag, cleaning them off the red goop, shushing him, pacifying. In the background, he distinguished the noises of people working fast, Sooyoung shouting instructions, glasses being picked out, things being put back in place, and his hands were still being cleaned. “I’m here.”

It was his hands the ones reddened with Taeyong’s blood now, as he helped his arms into the clothing. He finally dared look up for a second, into Johnny’s eyes, and he found mercy in them, but a kiss on his temple made him quickly flutter them closed. Johnny’s hand caressed down his cheek, smearing his tears, and he felt himself being enveloped between his arms once again.

And he found himself allowing it. 

“I’m taking you back home, Doie.”, he reassured him once again, and it sent a shiver down his spine, a shiver of relief. 

“We’re going home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow... what a ride, what a ride!!!!!!!
> 
> first of all... thank you all for dealing with me, with my delays and all and for all of your kind comments. i hope this ending was worth it. i worked really hard on it and i still dont know if im 100% happy with it hehe so maybe ill be editing it in a few days... (i wont change anything but wording here, though! dont worry this IS the end)
> 
> second of all, ill say it right now, this story WILL have a second part. it will come out most likely next year around feb-march, though. there's still many mysteries and stories untold, and i hope im able to write something as interesting as this one here hehe <3\. (most likely ill write little one shots about side characters too, so if u want to read about it youre invited to once they're out!)
> 
> third, ill be posting extra content under this [ thread](https://twitter.com/pikwanchu/status/1323340251805470726)
> 
> ! things like my playlist, things about the characters, little details or fun facts bc i love oversharing <3 also ofc you guys can always come to my cc and complain or yell or ask about things that maybe i didnt leave clear enough, so yeah. 
> 
> fourth of all i just want to mention again that this was my first time writing an actual full length fic and i cannot explain how MUCH all of your comments helped me get through writing blocks and gave me motivation to go on. thank you SO much!! thank u so much for reading, re-reading, overthinking, opining, loving, hating, etc this story! (im sorry im being over the top its just the first time i get to finish something this long LMAO) all of your feedback was so important for this, you guys have no idea. also i apologize for leaving so many comments unreplied T_T it wasnt on purpouse i swear i forgot T_T thank u for still commenting regardless!
> 
> and with all of that being said, i say goodbye for a little while!! thank u so much again for reading up to here!!!! i love u all!!!!!!
> 
> ps: CHECK OUT THE SERIES DOWN BELOW! I began posting one shots from the rest of the packs perspective!! I hope you like them 💗 they’re soft and slice of life, consider them an apology for this ending LMFAO 💗💗

**Author's Note:**

> Want to come yell at me? You can do it at @pikwanchu on twitter or at https://curiouscat.me/pikwanchu for a more anonymous dealing <3


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